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OUR COMMON ROAD 



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COPYRIGHT, I913, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published November IQ13 



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©CIA 35 75 9 7 



CONTENTS 

To the Fountain of Joy 

I. What Really Counts 3 

II. Circumstances and Success .... 6 

III. The "Do it Now" Motto .... 9 

IV. Bridges and Barriers 12 

V. Accepting the Usual 15 

VI. Slang 18 

VII. Driving a Good Bargain . . . .21 
VIII. What is the "Public" that "wants" 

Things? 24 

IX. Things that do not matter ... 27 

X. The Land of Sleep 29 

XL What we Are and What we Have . .32 

XII. A Path to Happiness 35 

XIII. The Better Part of Valor . . . .38 

XIV. Listening and Learning 40 

XV. Getting and Keeping Happiness . . 43 

XVI. Prejudice 46 

XVII. What makes a Sacrifice 49 

XVIII. Making an Impression 52 

XIX. Fortune-Telling 55 

XX. Imitation and Reality 58 

(V) 



Contents 



XXI. Tearing down and Building up . . .61 

XXII. Shyness 64 

XXIII. Being Rooted 66 

XXIV. Biography and Life 70 

XXV. A Plea for Playfulness .... 72 



¥0 the House of Friendship 



I. 


Reforming your Friends . 


79 


II. 


Pity and Sentimentalism . 


82 


III. 


What they said they wanted . . ■. 


85 


IV. 


The People in our own Town . 


88 


V. 


Selfish and Unselfish Friendship . 


9i 


VI. 


Social and Business Relationships . 


. 94 


VII. 


Euphemism 


■ 97 


VIII. 


People we are Afraid of 


. 100 


IX. 


The Men that Women like . 


. 103 


X. 


Home Truths 


. 106 


XI. 


Feeling Sorry for Other People . 


. 109 


XII. 


Snobbishness 


. 112 


XIII. 


The Point of Contact .... 


• us 


XIV. 


Dr. Brown 


. 118 


XV. 


The American Idea ..... 


. 122 


XVI. 


Shop-Windows 


. 124 


XVII. 


Heroes and Comedians of Life 


. 127 


SCVIII. 


Keeping a Friend 


. 130 




(vi) 





Contents 



XIX. The Meddlesome Woman . . . .132 
XX. There is always Something Else . .135 

XXI. The Disapproving Attitude 
XXII. The Alarmist 
XXIII. Broken Promises 
XXIV. The Impulsive Woman 

XXV. Unique Experiences . 



137 
141 

143 
146 
149 



"To Gray Hills and Green 



I. Doing Nothing 155 

II. Memories 158 

III. On Growing Up and Growing Old . . 161 

IV. The Sunset Light 165 

V. What makes Good Taste . . . .168 

VI. What are you Looking for? . . ; 171 

VII. The Love of Possession 174 

VIII. Letting the Spring come . . . .176 

IX. Slowing down 180 

X. What Nature has for us . . .183 

XL The Country Graveyard . . . .186 

XII. Water Babies 189 

XIII. The Fir Tree 193 

XIV. Seeing Pictures 196 

XV. A Plea for Horseback Riding . . . 199 

XVI. Autumn Decorations 202 

( vii) 



Contents 



XVII. The Child and his Toy 205 

XVIII. The Successful Woman . ... . . 208 

XIX. Doves and Dragons 212 

XX. The Children's Clothes .... 214 

XXI. The Making and Mending of a Faux Pas 217 

XXII. Furnishing Houses and Minds . . . 220 

XXIII. Old Ladies and Young Ones . . . 223 

XXIV. Bonds of Honor 225 

XXV. Kittens 228 

To the Land of Reflection 

I. Christmas Day 235 

II. Time the Interpreter 238 

III. When the Expected happens . . . 241 

IV. Changes 244 

V. Dreams 247 

VI. A Sense of Proportion 250 

VII. The Thought and the Deed . . . 253 

VIII. Recognition and Revelation . . . 255 

IX. Forgotten Christmas Workers . . . 258 

X. When Christmas seems Sad to you . . 261 

XL Orientation 264 

XII. Running around 267 

XIII. The Top of the Table 270 

XIV. Two Points of View 272 

( viii ) 



Contents 



XV. Dealing with Difficult People . . 274 

XVI. Clean Mary and Dirty Jane . . . 278 

XVII. Paying the Price 280 

XVIII. Too Busy 283 

XIX. The Gray Life 286 

XX. Getting a New Sensation .... 288 

XXI. Behaving Ourselves 291 

XXII. Doing it Ourselves 294 

XXIII. The Woman who cannot be Alone . . 297 

XXIV. What he Gives . . . . . . . 300 

XXV. Saying Good-bye 303 



OUR COMMON ROAD 

To the Fountain of "Joy 
*§ i & 

WHAT REALLY COUNTS 

A great financier dies. He has lived a life 
of hard work and intelligent work. He has 
made money and a name for himself. He has 
houses and lands and automobiles and steam 
yachts and all the other impedimenta that are 
supposed to make people happy. He has made 
a fortune for himself and some of his fellows 
and he has wrested fortunes away from others 
of his fellows. He has been what the world 
calls successful. And when he dies his family 
or his friends want to put something on his 
gravestone or on the monument that is being 
erected to his memory. They think and they 
think and they think, and finally they put 
down, not that he was enormously rich, but 

(3) 



Our Common Road 



that he was kind to his friends ; not that he was 
tremendously clever, but that he was public- 
spirited. 

Sometimes they have to think a long time be- 
fore they can find anything to put on that slab 
which will not sound like a mockery, because 
they are hunting for qualities that the great fin- 
ancier had almost forgotten, he was so busy 
making money. And although making money 
was the chief aim of his life, yet no one says 
anything about that now : they seem almost 
ashamed of it. No one has ever put a dollar- 
sign on a gravestone to indicate that the man 
who lies below was any richer than the poor 
laborer who rests near him. 

It is so strange — the things that people are 
really remembered by. A woman may struggle 
all her life to be a social success, and yet, when 
she is dead, no one breathes a word about all 
that struggle, but they go searching back in 
their memories for other traits that they can 
speak about without it sounding hideous. 
Everything falls away except the memory of 
her human qualities. They remember that she 

(4) 



Our Common Road 



was generous and quickly moved by compas- 
sion. All the brilliant characteristics which she 
tried to attain are forgotten or ignored as her 
eyes close. 

Is it not curious that death must come to 
show to people what they really admire ? 

What do you care for in your friends ? Their 
beauty or their warm hearts ? Their brains or 
their affection ? Their wealth or their sym- 
pathy ? 

What we really care for in other people are 
those simple old-fashioned virtues that we go 
for days without mentioning: their integrity, 
their reliability, their kindness. 

The things that men and women give their 
lives to grasp are the very things that are for- 
gotten first of all. All the human qualities that 
they forget are the very ones that will be long- 
est remembered. 

" She was a good woman," they say when 
they speak of some one they loved, and that is 
the highest praise they can give. And yet how 
many people frankly admit that what they want 
to be is " good," meaning the word in the way 

(5 ) 



Our Common Road 



that little children mean it — comprising all the 
virtues ? 

And yet what is there more important? Can 
you think of anything ? 

« 2 & 
CIRCUMSTANCES AND SUCCESS 

In one of Arnold Bennett's novels he says 
of a certain character — an unmarried woman : 
"She would have made an excellent wife and 
mother, but Fate had ordained that this good 
material be wasted." 

Very frequently we see women who, we con- 
clude, Fate has ordained should be wasted. This 
woman would have been successful in the busi- 
ness world, but her time is spent at household 
tasks. That girl would be a social light, but 
her lot is to care for her invalid mother. This 
teacher should have married. That married 
woman would have been happier teaching. So 
we think, and sum up the situation with the 
old saw : " She's a square peg in a round hole." 

And when we are despondent, we begin pity- 
(6) 



Our Common Road 



ing ourselves. If circumstances had been differ- 
ent, how different we should be ! If we had 
had brothers and sisters, if we had had early 
advantages, if we could have lived in the city, 
then we should have been successes instead of 
failures. 

The fact is that circumstances have very little 
to do with genuine success or failure. Do you 
think that Jane Addams is the power she is 
to-day because she had no brothers and sisters, 
or because she did not marry, or because she 
lives in Chicago ? Do you think George Eliot 
was a great writer because she happened to 
have been born in England, or did or did not 
have early advantages, or because she was not 
handsome ? A vital woman makes circumstances 
and is not made by them. 

Maeterlinck has said, " All events are like a 
stream of water flowing past, a stream without 
color and without form. Each one dips in her 
little bowl and straightway the water takes on 
the shape and reflects the color of the vessel." 
If you listen to two people relating the selfsame 
experiences, you will see that the actual happen- 

( 7) 



Our Common Road 



ing is nothing in itself: the manner of receiving 
it is everything. 

Do not coddle yourself by thinking, " I 
might have been an artist if T had not had to 
be a typist." If you had the capacity for being 
an artist, you would have displayed it in every- 
thing you touched. Whatever your work was, 
you would have done it beautifully, for art is, 
after all, doing a thing in the best possible way. 
Your capacity for being an artist should have 
made you a better typist and not a worse one. 

Your particular environment is simply the 
medium through which you work out your life. 
A sculptor who wanted to express an idea in 
tangible form might prefer clay to marble or 
wood to either, but if he were in earnest he 
would take what he could get, and express him- 
self through it as well as he could. Critics tell 
us that the purest art is that which moves within 
the strictest limitations. 

Too many advantages may be the greatest 
of disadvantages, and difficulties may prove 
blessings. If you spend your life looking for 
favorable circumstances, you will have no life 

(8 ) 



Our Common Road 



to live when you find them. But if you give 
your life generously and nobly through what- 
ever channel is opened, you will be a success. 
For success lies in endeavor as much as in 
achieving. 

• 3 * 

THE "DO IT NOW" MOTTO 

There is something that we all know, but 
that many of us like to forget, and that most 
of us positively refuse to practice, and this is 
that the easiest time to do a disagreeable thing 
is now. 

We know that any distasteful duty is doubled 
in painfulness by dread, evasion, delay. Take 
letter-writing. No matter to how few corre- 
spondents we have reduced our list, no matter 
how brief our communication may be, yet if we 
dislike writing letters we worry and hedge and 
kick against the pricks for weeks before we actu- 
ally attack the proposition of answering them. 
And the shamed inner conviction that we could 
have saved all that wear and tear either by an- 

(9) 



Our Common Road 



swering the letters when they came, or by plan- 
ning when they could and should be answered 
and then forgetting all about it until the time 
arrived, is only another tickle of irritation. 

Perhaps the hopefulness that springs eternal 
is the cause of our procrastination ; we hope that 
an angel in the form of a stenographer will sud- 
denly materialize before our eyes, although we 
have jogged along for half a century without any 
such phenomenon occurring. We hope our friend 
will forget we owe a letter, will unexpectedly de- 
cide to run on and see us, will lose her mind so 
that letters will not be required, will think that 
mail miscarried — the most fantastic jumble as- 
sails the mind of the wretched individual who 
has not learned not to dodge the disagreeable. 

For resolutely to make up one's mind to 
anything — to pay that call this afternoon, or 
to put it out of thought until it is possible to 
pay it — is one of the hardest of the small 
things we have to do. The petty worries come 
buzzing around like a flock of gnats that sizz 
and sizz about the ears of the drowsy camper 
on a hot summer morning. He fights them 
( ») 



Our Common Road 



miserably, stifling under his blanket which he 
pulls over his head — and yet, oh, the excru- 
ciating difficulty of rising, driving them out, 
and tying down the flaps of the tent ! It seems 
easier to endure hours of slight annoyances 
than five minutes of decisive conflict. 

"Do it now" is the succinct admonition em- 
blazoned upon a thousand cards in the station- 
ers' windows, and we see the cards stuck up 
everywhere — in offices, in homes, over the 
working-girl's desk, and in the stay-at-home 
girl's mirror. It is the slogan with which the 
flagging ranks of the vacillating try to bolster 
up their weak cause. 

But the motto is not a predigested food which 
can be swallowed. It is a stern fact that must 
be chewed, digested, and assimilated. It is not 
a magical password that opens locked doors. 
It is only a reminder that may prove a key if 
you travel by yourself to the charmed doors. 

And, after all, it is the key to success. No 
one can blame you if you fail to grasp it, but 
many will admire you if you do. Have you 
anything to do to-day ? Well, then, "do it now." 

(») 



Our Common Road 



<& 4 e> 

BRIDGES AND BARRIERS 

One of the most usual traits in people is to 
think that they are unusual. It is extraordinary 
what trifling qualities we will pride ourselves 
on if we think that they are in any way dis- 
tinctive. In lieu of any admirable trait that may 
differentiate us from the rest of the common herd, 
we will seize the most unadmirable. Indeed, 
some people seem to take a peculiar joy in 
crediting themselves with the blackest of char- 
acteristics. 

" I am the most jealous woman in the world," 
one will declare in a tone of triumph. " Well, 
I am the most slovenly," another will hasten 
to add. 

" I am a most peculiar creature ; I can't 
eat anything for breakfast but a cup of clear 
coffee," a man will announce impressively, and 
his neighbor will affirm with equal eagerness 
that he can eat anything for breakfast — lobster 
and cherries if need be — without a qualm. 
And then they both lean back quite satisfied 

( I* ) 



Our Common Road 



with the enormity of these astonishing dis- 
closures. 

As for the people who are proud of the fact 
that they cannot spell, that they have quick 
tempers, or that they can make a fire burn — 
they are a legion. One girl prefers sewing with 
a bent needle, and one man glories in the fact 
that he can consume any quantity of sand with 
his spinach. 

In fact, we clutch at anything at all — from 
anatomical defects to mental peculiarities — 
that may seem to give us a slightly more em- 
phasized silhouette than our fellows on the 
great background of life. 

This continually finding points of difference 
between ourselves and every one else may grow 
from an absurdity into actual habit of mind that 
affects us more than we realize. Instead of con- 
tinually looking for things which make you dif- 
ferent from others, why not occasionally look 
for the traits which you have in common with 
them ? 

Thus, if you go to a restaurant and a woman 
takes a seat at your table, instead of thinking to 

( 13 ) 



Our Common Road 



yourself, " How ordinary this person is! Isn't 
it curious how many people can wear that hor- 
rible shade of green, and how few have any 
real taste in dressing ? " — instead of thinking 
this, why not — just for a change — think about 
your common likeness? It may be the littlest 
thing. She may order a dish you like; she may 
appear interested in something in the street 
that has caught your eye ; she may have on a 
ring that reveals that her taste coincides with 
yours — if you are looking for likenesses instead 
of differences you can always find them. And 
the instant you have recognized a common 
bond between yourself and any other human 
being, instead of erecting a barrier, you have 
projected a bridge. You may never speak to 
the woman in the restaurant ; you may never 
see her again, but your meal has been eaten in 
the atmosphere of friendliness instead of hos- 
tility. 

Of course, the instinct to preserve our indi- 
vidualities by emphasizing our idiosyncrasies is 
almost as natural as the instinct to preserve our 
lives by getting air and struggling out of water. 

( 14) 



Our Common Road 



It is tremendously human to snatch at anything 
that may seem to lift us out of the vast dead 
level of commonplaces. The silly girl who 
elopes with the coachman, just to be sensational, 
is actuated by the same motive as the woman 
who insists that she rather enjoys wearing stock- 
ings with holes in them. 

Seeking to maintain some sort of personality 
is a necessity just as is occasional solitude : but 
companionship is also a necessity, and this 
comes by bridges not barriers. 

« 5 * 

ACCEPTING THE USUAL 

Suppose you were going to sweep out the 
coal-bin, you would not put on a white dress, 
would you ? You would adapt your costume 
to the work in hand. Suppose you were going 
to live in India, would you, before you went, 
set assiduously to work to cultivate a taste 
for French cooking ? Of course you would 
not. 

It is the essence of practical common sense 

( 15 ) 



Our Common Road 



to learn to accustom one's self to the practices, 
habits, foods that one is most likely to meet 
throughout one's life ; and yet, simple as this 
principle is, it is astonishing to see how many 
of us disregard it. 

Look at the children you know and see how 
few of them have been trained to eat what is set 
before them in the matter of plain food, and 
yet the ability to eat what is simple and nour- 
ishing will be of the greatest value to them 
throughout their lives. 

It is not alone in the training of children 
that we make mistakes. We thoughtlessly allow 
ourselves to form trifling habits that may be a 
constant source of trouble to us as long as we 
live. Take, for instance, the girl who has per- 
mitted herself to think that she cannot sleep 
unless her blinds are closely drawn. If that girl 
travels or visits, she will find that for one time 
when it is possible to have the blinds drawn 
there are six times when she will find no blinds 
at all, or cannot close them, or is obliged to 
share the room with a person who wants the 
blinds open. Accordingly she will suffer incon- 
( 16 ) 



Our Common Road 



veniences six times as often as she would have 
done had she accustomed herself to accepting 
the usual situation. The same way with a cold- 
water bath. If you form the habit of never 
being able to take a cold-water bath, the proba- 
bilities are that you will go bathless a good 
many times, because you are more likely to get 
cold water than hot if you stir away from your 
own hearth and steam heater. 

All the little extravagances in which we pam- 
per ourselves will probably bring us more dis- 
comfort than pleasure before we are done with 
them. If you cannot sleep in anything but linen 
sheets, if you cannot wear ready-made shirt- 
waists, or sit in a draught; if tobacco smoke 
makes you ill, and a person with a loud voice 
gives you a headache ; if you have to read until 
two in the morning to sleep until nine in the 
morning — well, you are likely to have a good 
many disagreeable times before you have shuf- 
fled oflf this mortal coil. 

If you are sensible you will sweep aside as 
many of these idiosyncrasies as soon as pos- 
sible and accustom yourself to the things you 

( 17 ) 



Our Common Road 



will probably have to meet constantly through- 
out your life, and learn to accept the usual phe- 
nomena of existence with as little friction and as 
good grace as you can muster. 

<& 6 -8> 
SLANG 

You would get exceedingly weary of seeing 
a friend of yours in the selfsame suit and waist 
and tie every time and all the time you saw her. 
You would grow very weary of eating exactly 
the selfsame fare three times a day, or hearing 
precisely the same music at every concert, or 
seeing the same actor at every play. But what 
about listening to the great number of people 
who apparently have in their vocabularies about 
a dozen words, and these they use on all occa- 
sions. Do you ever tire of hearing a young girl 
describe every feeling which ranges from mild 
approval to violent affection as being "crazy 
about it " ? Are you a little weary of hearing the 
entire human race classified as cc peaches," 
"bricks," and "pills"? 

( 18 ) 



Our Common Road 



Slang has its place, but its place is not every- 
where. It has its time, but its time is not always. 
And the most insidious thing about it is that, 
like some impertinent newcomer to a respectable 
town, it crowds out all the old inhabitants, who, 
according to all laws of etiquette, have their 
rights as well. Slang has come to stay : no partic- 
ular word or phrase will stay, maybe, but the 
habit is surely with us. You may deplore it, or 
ignore it, or commend it, but you cannot deny 
it. But surely there are laws which should gov- 
ern its usage and limit its role to the legitimate. 

First, we must concede that the worst thing 
about slang is that it is painfully crippling. The 
girl who calls everything fC dandy," from the 
latest college ice to a sermon on immortality, 
not only limits her powers of speech, but in 
time radically restricts her powers of observa- 
tion. You may consider "dandy" an explicit 
definition, or you may consider it rather vague, 
but in either case you must admit that it is not 
the only commendatory word in the language, 
and if you do not want to be tiresome, you 
should introduce a few of the others. 

( 19) 



Our Common Road 



In the next place, the use of slang is not dig- 
nified. You may not object to the small boy's 
shrieking, " Hand him one ! " in a moment of 
excitement, but if you have any sensibilities at 
all, you do inwardly protest when educated 
girls and women, in discussing more or less seri- 
ous matters, say that "He was chucked out," 
or that " She had to dig around for it," or that 
it was "Going some/' 

Whatever the future of women may be, we 
still expect them to maintain certain standards, 
not only of what is right, but what is attractive 
and pleasing. And neither of these is possible 
without a certain degree of dignity. You may 
describe some ridiculous situation in ridiculous 
language, without losing an iota of dignity, but 
when you describe everything in flippant collo- 
quialism your remarks lose weight, and your 
personality loses charm. 

Why not learn to discriminate in our choice 
of words as well as in our choice of clothes? We 
do not wear our sweaters to a dance; why carry 
the language of the sporting-field into the tea- 
room ? 

( «>.) 



Our Common Road 



Slang is occasionally expressive and appropri- 
ate. It is usually inexpressive and inappropriate 
and not infrequently vulgar. Is it not possible to 
employ it when we need it, as we use a tart 
seasoning, with a sparing hand ? And for the 
rest of the time why not try to make our speech 
beautiful as we try to make beautiful our 
homes, our clothes, and ourselves ? 

<# 7 -8> 

DRIVING A GOOD BARGAIN 

When a woman announces proudly that she 
has driven a good bargain, what flashes into your 
mind? Do you think how lucky she was to get 
the bargain, or how unlucky the other person 
was? 

A good bargain is apt to be like a coat which 
appears very handsome on the outside, but if you 
turn it inside out, you will see a rather shabby 
lining. If you get something for less than it is 
worth, the person who sold it to you is also get- 
ting less than it is worth. Your good bargain 
may be his bad bargain, and it probably is. 

( 21 ) 



Our Common Road 



Of course, there is so much selfishness in the 
world that we are obliged to protect ourselves 
and look out for our own rights. But since there 
are so many grasping people everywhere, why 
swell the ranks? Why not join that exclusive 
minority of the fair-minded ? 

To take advantage of another's necessity is 
contemptible, and yet it is a rather common oc- 
currence in nearly every field of activity. If you 
believe in the policy of "each man for himself," 
you are perfectly consistent if you drive as many 
good bargains as you can. But if you are an 
idealist, who wants to do the right thing, you 
should scorn to pay your washerwoman ten 
cents an hour when the regular wage is fifteen, 
simply because you know that she must have 
work immediately and will take it at any price 
to buy food for her children. If fifteen cents is 
the standard price, and is what she is worth, you 
should pay her that amount. There is nothing 
magnanimous or charitable in the proceeding ; it 
is the simplest justice and decency. 

From the time that we bought land worth in- 
calculable sums from the Indians and gave them 

( ") 



Our Common Road 



a few beads in exchange, the virus of driving a 
good bargain has been in our blood. A man 
who knows the value of an antique will see a 
pitcher worth twelve dollars in some farmhouse, 
and will offer the owner seventy-five cents, and 
then bear off his prize triumphantly. The 
pitcher was not worth twelve dollars to the orig- 
inal owner, as he neither knew the value nor 
appreciated it, and the skill and knowledge of 
the collector are worth something. Still, the 
pitcher was worth more than seventy-five cents, 
and a fair-minded man would give it. 

It makes no difference what you are bargain- 
ing for — a hat or a house and lot or a cook. 
There are two sides to every bargain, and a fair 
bargain means fair play to both buyer and seller. 
Everything has its value ; time has its value, skill 
has its value, strength has its value, and goods 
have their value. You are either stupid or un- 
fortunate if you let other people get the best of 
you, but you are worse than stupid or unfortu- 
nate if you get the best of them. There is al- 
ways a proper balance to be attained. Even the 
Devil must have his due, they tell us. 

( n ) 



Our Common Road 



A sealskin coat from your ears to your heels 
sold for ten dollars would be dear if it was an- 
other's necessity that forced it to go at that price. 
Because a person is in a hard strait is no reason 
why we should take advantage of him. It is, 
rather, our opportunity for service. 

If people in your employment are worth more 
than you are giving them, you are not clever, but 
despicable, if you either do not let them know 
what they are worth, or do not give it to them. 

A good bargain is a fair bargain, and all the 
things in the world are not worth a mean action. 

<& 8 ■&> 

WHAT IS THE "PUBLIC" THAT "WANTS" 
THINGS ? 

"We give the 'Public' what the c Public ' 
wants," say the theater managers when some 
particularly vulgar production causes indignant 
protest. "The c Public' wants sensational news 
of graft and slander and indecency," say the 
cheap newspapers, "and, of course, we give the 
'Public' what the 'Public' wants." 
( 24) 



Our Common Road 



And meanwhile the "Public" sits quietly by 
— very quietly for such a vociferous body sup- 
posed to make its slightest wish known with un- 
mistakable emphasis — and meekly accepts all 
the opprobrium that any fanatic wishes to fling 
at it. 

What is the "Public" that wants such curi- 
ous things ? Who composes this "Public" that 
has to have blood every day like the ancient 
Minotaur? 

As you ride in the train and look about you 
at the men and women reading the morning 
papers, do you quail before a crew of ferocious 
pirates who look as if they could be appeased 
only by carloads of hair-raising, blood-curdling 
news of scandal, crime, and horror ? You prob- 
ably see a very decent lot of men and women 
who seem to be interested in all sorts of things, 
from the European situation to household rec- 
ipes, as well as the latest criminal case. 

As you scrutinize the audience at the theater, 
do you see a horrible flock of vultures in human 
clothing, screaming for filth ? You see nothing 
of the sort. You see men and women like your- 

( 25 ) 



Our Common Road 



self, who, as a whole, want what you want — 
comedy that is clean and tragedy that is true. 

The "Public" is much maligned. It is told 
on every provocation that it likes to be fooled ; 
that it is vulgar, stupid, and rude. And we 
listen and waggle our heads in grieving assent. 
Do you not realize that the "Public" is you, 
your family, and your friends : your store- 
keeper and your minister, and your postman, 
and your policeman and your next door neigh- 
bor? None of these is utterly depraved nor 
shockingly vicious, is he ? 

You are the "Public" as much as any other 
living person is the "Public," and what you 
want is what the " Public " wants. And if you 
insist that the " Public" wants gore and gristle, 
you are simply admitting that you want gore and 
gristle, and, therefore, that you presume that 
every one else does also. 

At bottom we are all very much alike. We 
all have a "streak of lean and a streak of fat." 
We normally like clean things, although we 
may occasionally feel a sudden morbid interest 
in something grewsome. And if, through that 

( 26 ) 



Our Common Road 



occasional interest or through sheer thought- 
lessness, we allow ourselves to go to some 
salacious play that the "Public" applauds or 
read some of the revolting details that the 
" Public " demands, we make a little bit more 
true all those depressing criticisms. 

You are the " Public/' Every time you hear 
any one say that the " Public' ' wants indecent 
clothes or false news, ask yourself if you want 
indecent clothes or false news. If you do, then 
you must accept the dictum or mend your ways. 
If you do not, then come out bravely and help 
lift the slur cast upon yourself — for you are the 
"Public." 

■e 9 s> 

THINGS THAT DO NOT MATTER 

So many things do not matter. Innumerable 
things that we worry over or fret about or strive 
for really make no difference whatever, and we 
worry and fret and strive for them merely from 
a stupid sort of habit. 

There are three classes of things that do not 
matter. Take first that vast array of trivialities 
( 27 ) 



Our Common Road 



that seem so distressingly important when one 
is tired or nervous — the little irritating things 
of daily life ; the way Sister will leave the closet 
door open, or the way Father makes a noise with 
the chair when he sits down to the breakfast 
table, or the way people on the car will crowd 
out ahead — these things seem trying and an- 
noying, but if we stopped to think we should 
realize instantly that they are of no consequence, 
and the sooner we learn to drop the curtain of 
our perceptions upon them the more quickly 
we reduce the wear and tear of our daily life. 

Then there is the class of things that do not 
matter because they are none of our business. 
If some of the estimable women in this world 
would only relieve their minds of the burden- 
some perplexities that they have assumed from 
an over-zealous sense of duty, they would be 
amazed at the sudden airiness and freedom of 
their mental outlook. You are not responsible 
for the proper running of the entire world 
and the correct behavior of all the inhabitants 
thereof, and you cannot, with the most stren- 
uous efforts imaginable, carry them all upon 

( 28 ) 



Our Common Road 



your heart and mind. So why wear yourself out 
in fruitless endeavor to do everybody's busi- 
ness ? 

And the third class of things that do not 
matter as far as we are concerned is composed 
of those things which cannot be changed or 
prevented. Rain, wind, time, most of the nat- 
ural laws and a few of the man-made ones are 
inflexible and obdurate, and there is no use in 
raging against them. 

What a number of things really do not mat- 
ter ! And we have, perhaps, let them bother 
us and trouble us again and again, thinking that 
they mattered, and mattered supremely. But 
do they ? 

<& 10 %> 

THE LAND OF SLEEP 

When the world begins to look faded, when 
every one who comes in knocks over a chair, and 
every one who goes out slams the door, when 
the crackling of a newspaper is as maddening as 
a squeaky wheel, the probabilities are that you 

( 29 ) 



Our Common Road 



need seven nights of good sleep. And not only 
for temporary indispositions, but for habitual 
grievances, sleep is the great balm and restorer. 
The man who is fidgety and nervous, the girl 
who has a thousand and one aversions, the 
woman who is consumed with jealousy, the wor- 
rier who is annoyed by countless trifles, might 
all survey life more philosophically after they 
had put plenty of good sleep behind them. 

Sleep is the gold mine from which we can dig 
treasure more precious than gold. The girl who 
sleeps sweetly and long is storing up for herself 
an incalculable fund of good health and serene 
spirits. Do you remember the story of the 
king who had to choose a wife, and all he said 
to his councilors was : " Of all the maidens in the 
kingdom I will only consider those who eat 
three square meals a day and sleep all night 
without waking" ? 

There are many unfortunate people who are tor- 
mented by insomnia, and to tell these wretched 
sufferers that what they need is sleep, is like tell- 
ing prisoners that what they need is liberty. But 
many of the people whom we see heavy-eyed 
( 30 ) 



Our Common Road 



and dulled are so, not because they cannot sleep, 
but because they will not, or because they have 
abused the gift so long that it has finally fled. 
People who will not go to bed when there is no 
reason why not, who sleep in badly ventilated 
rooms, who roll up in cramped positions, who 
let themselves lie awake, who humor themselves 
with the notion that they cannot sleep before two 
or after five, are pushing themselves toward the 
brink of disaster. Dawdling in getting ready for 
bed eats up many valuable moments, and daw- 
dling in the morning consumes as many more. 
Most of us could save more than we realize in 
our daily operations of dressing and undressing. 
And it is not only the length of our slumber, 
but its quality. A clean body, a composed mind, 
and an airy room are the essentials, and these 
are attainable by nearly all of us. If you drop 
like a log into a stuffy bed, with no thought ex- 
cept that of dog weariness, your sleep will be 
sordid and only half-refreshing. But if you go 
to your slumber as a child goes to his mother's 
arms, eager to drop all the trouble of a perplex- 
ing existence, confident that some healing will 

( 31 ) 



Our Common Road 



soothe all the hurt of the day, willing to be tran- 
quillized, then sleep will flow through you like 
light through a crystal ball. 

Prepare your mind and body for sleep as you 
would prepare them for a journey to a distant 
and beautiful country. Open the windows of 
yourroom and the windows of your soul and you 
will slowly drift away to a land of delicious quiet- 
ness floating upon a sea of peace. 

* II * 

WHAT WE ARE AND WHAT WE HAVE 

Many people fondly cherish an idea which, 
if they would hold it up to searching light of 
day, would vanish like a puff of smoke. Like 
the smoke, it is soft and charming in general ap- 
pearance, but it has no basis or solid foundation. 

To descend from flowery simile to specific 
illustration : A woman thinks she would like 
to entertain beautifully ; that she would like 
to have cultivated and brilliant people come to 
her house. In other words, she pines for a salon. 

Now, a salon is not a thing which one can 

( 32 ) . 



Our Common Road 



buy ; it is a thing which one must create — and 
this is true of nearly all the valuable things in 
the world. And, furthermore, we can only create 
out of our own selves — our own personalities. 
An ant is able to carry an object much bigger 
than itself, but most human beings can only 
manage things commensurate with their own 
weight. Therefore, if you wish a salon, you must 
be capable of a salon — not merely envious of 
one, for the things which come to us are not un- 
related to us, but grow out from our inmost being. 

How often we hear a young girl sigh for the 
prince who will come to make her life happy 
and radiant. Does she think that any one — 
even the most bewitching of princes — can bring 
her what can only come from herself? You can- 
not hope for a beautiful marriage unless you are 
beautiful yourself. Any relationship is made by 
the people who are in it; it is not a thing apart 
which people can cling to. 

And that is one of the greatest tests of affec- 
tion ; if you truly love any one, you wish him 
to be his best self, not merely devoted to you. 
The friend who loves her friends unselfishly is 
( 33 ) 



Our Common Road 



happy whatever good thing comes to them, 
even if that good thing takes them away from 
her. But the woman who loves selfishly is heart- 
broken when her friends leave her or love some 
one else more, or make a decision that is dif- 
ferent from her decision. The only thing which 
really grieves a person who truly loves another 
is when that loved one does something which 
violates her highest self. 

If you are a second-rate person, everything 
you do will be second-rate ; if you are grasping 
or egotistical or commercial or shallow, your 
friendships and all your relationships in life will 
be of that caliber. For nothing can come from 
you which is not there. 

And it is just as true the other way around. 
If you are a person of delicacy and honor, 
wonderful things will come to you — things 
which no one can ever take away and which 
nothing can ever destroy. What you are will 
illuminate what you have. 

Things are what we make them. Two women 
each make a cake, from the same ingredients, 
and one is a good cake and the other is a poor 

( 34 ) 



Our Common Road 



cake. The reason was not in the ingredients, but 
in the makers. One woman makes a happy mar- 
riage, and another woman makes an unhappy 
marriage. It is not the institution, it is the 
individual, that makes the difference. 

For what we have and what we do, and what 
comes to us or goes from us, depends — not 
upon circumstances, but upon ourselves — what 
we really are and what we try to be. 

3- 12 & 
A PATH TO HAPPINESS 

If you are hungry and find good food and 
plenty of it and you eat it, you are satisfied. If 
you are healthily tired and able to take a long 
sleep, you awake rested ; and so it is with nearly 
all the human emotions and desires. With 
nearly all, but not with a certain one. The 
craving to be understood and to be cared for is 
almost the strongest desire in the human heart. 
Look at the men and women around you ; men 
working all day and every day for the families 
which they love. Women undergoing every con- 
( 35 ) 



Our Common Road 



ceivable trial to win and hold the attachment of 
those who are dear to them. And then the great 
restless unhappy throng who are hunting and 
yearning for sympathy and friendship. 

Practically all of us are in search of happi- 
ness, and although our ideas of happiness differ, 
yet every conception of it is based, more or less 
directly, upon the appreciation and regard of our 
fellows. The man who makes ten million dollars, 
but wins the hatred and distrust of every one 
who knows him, finds that his money brings 
him no joy. The woman who is beautiful, but 
whose beauty makes women envious of her 
and men greedy for her, finds that her beauty 
brings her no contentment. No matter what it 
is that you think would make you happy, if you 
subtract from it the joy of sweet human rela- 
tionships, you will find that you have left only 
the empty husk of delight. 

Every idea of happiness is based primarily 
upon the idea of affection. We want to be liked ; 
we want to be trusted ; we want people to be 
glad to see us ; we want to be loved. 

But the curious part is that when we set 

(36) 



Our Common Road 



out to gather in devotion as a child gathers in 
flowers, we find that it does not work. People 
will not like us because we want to be liked. 
They may pity us or be kind to us, but they 
cannot and they will not love us. And by and 
by we learn that, even when they do love us, 
our craving for affection is not stilled. If you are 
hungry and eat you are satisfied, but you want 
affection and get it and you are not necessarily 
satisfied. The only way that the desire for affec- 
tion is filled is when we give it — not seek it. 

Watch a mother with little children, lavishing 
every fondness and every gentle care upon them, 
all of which they take in the most nonchalant 
and matter-of-fact fashion. Who gets the de- 
light out of that expenditure of adoration ? The 
mother or the children ? Look at them and see. 

Who means the most to you ? Who has 
brought the greatest amount of enjoyment to 
you ? With whom would you rather be ? With a 
person you love, or with a person who loves you ? 

Do you long for understanding and tender- 
ness ? Understand other people; be tender with 
them, and you will find that your own desire 
(37 ) 



Our Common Road 



will be satisfied, and that, unaware, you have 
stumbled upon one of the paths to happiness. 

<$- 13 e> 

THE BETTER PART OF VALOR 

If you discover a worn place in a garment, and 
start to patch or darn it, unless you are a crass 
amateur you will make a patch that is a good 
deal larger than the actual hole, and your darn- 
ing will encircle an area almost twice the size of 
the worn place. You not only mend the worn 
place, but you strengthen everything around it. 

The same policy holds good in wider appli- 
cation. Frequently we discover a certain discrep- 
ancy in our characters that we cannot seem to 
overcome. It may be physical cowardice, such as 
inability to stand pain or to see blood, or it may 
be a moral weakness which we find impossible 
to conquer. The wise course in a case where we 
cannot mend the thing itself is to strengthen 
everything about it, just as a general upbuilding 
of the system will sometimes cure an undue 
susceptibility of some one part. If you have a 

( 38 ) 



Our Common Road 



quick temper that flashes up like tinder at the 
proper provocation, and does in an instant more 
damage than you can undo in a year, you know 
that it is almost impossible to catch it once the 
spark has set it off. But although you cannot 
catch it, perhaps you can forestall it. Thus, if 
you cannot resist a certain temptation, the bet- 
ter part of valor is to evade it. 

Our own qualities are more intimately related 
to each other than we realize, and it is possible 
to slip over some weakness, occasionally, by the 
impetus we have gathered from another source. 
If you cannot be an entertaining talker, you can 
conceal your defect by becoming such a flattering 
listener that no one will think of the other. 

The woman who dresses well understands 
this principle thoroughly. If her eyes are her 
chief beauty, she wears colors that emphasize 
that beauty; if it is her figure that gives her 
distinction, she puts most thought upon good 
lines. Many a homely woman with only one or 
two good points gives us a pleasing ensemble 
because she makes the most of what she has, 
and we forget what she has not. 
( 39 ) 



Our Common Road 



Most of us are handicapped one way or an- 
other, and for some persons the best way to 
overcome a handicap is to begin working in an 
entirely different direction. If you cannot have 
plate-glass windows in your house, be sure that 
your curtains are fresh and pretty, and that the 
rest of the room is as attractive as you can make 
it, and not one in a hundred will notice that your 
glass is not clear as crystal. 

Conquer the surrounding territory, and may- 
be the final assault on the central stronghold 
will prove unnecessary. It may not be a spec- 
tacular conquest — this slow moving upon the 
enemy, but it is only extreme youth that de- 
mands the spectacular. The most experienced 
are grateful if the battle leaves them with a 
breath of life, and their flags not utterly deserted. 

* 14 s> 

LISTENING AND LEARNING 

The mood of depression which falls upon 
even the most cheerful of us at some time 
usually gives rise to the melancholy reflection : 

(40) 



Our Common Road 



" Why was I born ? I don't seem to be accom- 
plishing anything in the world." When we are 
happy, we may not be accomplishing anything 
either, but the somber cloud of doubt and dis- 
couragement does not blacken our skies. We 
are happy and that is enough. 

But one path out of the woods when we are 
downcast at the thought of all we have not done, 
and can never do, is to remember that it is not 
given to each of us to do great deeds. Appre- 
ciation of great deeds is also a part of living. 
The girl who is trying to write or paint or act 
may never succeed if she is not a great genius. 
But she can get enjoyment for herself and give 
pleasure to others by becoming a thoughtful 
and intelligent reader and a true admirer of what 
is beautiful. We must have audiences as well as 
performers, and to be a keen and unprejudiced 
spectator of the world about us is by no means 
a paltry profession. 

There are so many things to interest us if 
we will only be receptive. There are so many 
fascinating chambers in the treasure house of 
earth, but most of us pay our scanty attention 

. (41 ) 



Our Common Road 



only to the few that happen to catch our fancy. 
Thus the girl who cares for poetry keeps fairly 
well up with modern poetry, but may know 
nothing of modern science, and the woman 
who is interested in domestic affairs may know 
nothing of political affairs. If they would both 
try to care a little for those things which do 
not instinctively interest them they would find 
their world suddenly brightening and broaden- 
ing before them. 

The girl who is gloomily convinced that she 
can never " do " anything often forgets that 
listening and learning are achievements as much 
as teaching and talking, and that there is no 
limit to the fields where one may enter as a lis- 
tener and learner. The biographies of great men 
and great women may be an inspiration to one 
who finds one's own life dull. The progress of 
events in industry and economics may be en- 
grossing to one whose personal events come few 
and far between. 

Good judgment, good taste, and keen, wide 
understanding, while not as dazzling as genius 
or great creative ability, nevertheless bring much 

(42) 



Our Common Road 



consolation and open many vistas to the pos- 
sessor. 

There is always something to learn ; some 
new sensation to thrill us; some new idea to 
grasp. When the blank mood of depression 
stares you in the face and the old question rises 
again : "Why was I born ? I don't seem to be 
accomplishing anything," — remember that lis- 
tening and learning are part of all accomplish- 
ment. 

You may not be great yourself, but you may, 
at least, appreciate greatness in others, and thus 
add to the store of the world's fullness as well 
as to your own. 

<$ 15 * 

GETTING AND KEEPING HAPPINESS 

You can go into a store and buy a piano if 
you have the money or the credit ; without 
money and without credit you can probably beg 
a meal and borrow a coat; but you cannot buy, 
beg, or borrow the thing that you want most of 
all — happiness. There is no possible way of 

(43) 



Our Common Road 



obtaining that chief requisite to contented living 
except by steady and assiduous application. 
Happiness is not a third thing ; it cannot be 
bought, it cannot be begged or borrowed — it 
must be made. And just as money is harder to 
keep than to get, so happiness is hard to win 
and harder still to hold. 

There is nothing novel in this observation ; 
we all know that there are some people who 
carry their happiness with them, and that on a 
rainy day their room is filled with sunshine, 
and in the meanest abode there is contentment 
if they are near. And we all know that a man 
can pile up a palace of marble and precious 
woods and fill it with every costly and beau- 
tiful thing, and that he can live in his splen- 
dor as miserably and as forlornly as a cat in a 
cellar. 

We all know these things, butwho would be- 
lieve we knew them, or think that we believed 
them, if they witnessed our wild stampede for 
things ? The demand for material possessions 
still rages, and although the majority of people 
will assent, rather half-heartedly, to be sure, that 

(44 ) 



Our Common Road 



money does not bring happiness, yet show any 
individual of that majority the opportunity to 
make a fortune, even at prodigious sacrifice, and 
see what he or she does ! 

Happiness depends primarily upon the atti- 
tude of mind. Other factors enter into it, de- 
tract from it, or add to it, but that is the rock 
bottom. First you must find the attitude of 
mind that brings you happiness, and having at- 
tained it you must then maintain it. Happiness 
is a living thing ; you must feed it. It is a mov- 
ing thing; you must keep up with it. You must 
make up your mind every day, just as you make 
up your bed every day. Every thought that 
passes through your mind leaves its effect, and 
the gathering of these effects into one consistent 
whole is what formulates our philosophy. 

If you are a pessimist, every event that occurs 
will substantiate your theory that this scheme of 
creation is, indeed, a sorry one. If you are a 
fatalist, you will merely watch the procession 
from behind languid lids and wait to see what 
will happen next. If you are a searcher after 
truth you will dissect each happening irrespec- 
(45 ) 



Our Common Road 



tive of its attendant emotions, and if you are 
a searcher after happiness you will transfuse into 
each event — no matter how trifling — a signifi- 
cance and joy that will illumine every day. 

Happiness is not a third thing which you may 
buy or borrow ; it is something you must first 
create and then maintain. It is the child of your 
heart and your brain. You must tend it and 
love it and train it. And it will grow under your 
guidance into something strong and beautiful. 

«■ 1 6 B> 
PREJUDICE 

A woman reading in the gathering twilight 
will not realize how dark the room has become 
and how she is straining her eyes over the blur- 
ring type until some one from outside enters 
with an exclamation of dismay and protest. 

So it is with prejudice which people allow to 
grow in their minds until it has blackened their 
outlook and gradually twisted their whole vi- 
sion. It may be with regard to things, but it is 
more usually with regard to people. It is so easy 

(46) 



Our Common Road 



to get a preconceived idea of what people will 
do and then to maintain that idea no matter 
what happens. Sometimes this preconceived idea 
overestimates, sometimes it underestimates, its 
object, but in either case it is unfair because it 
is unchanging, and people are always chang- 
ing. 

Pigeon-holing people is the sign of superfi- 
cial understanding. fC She 's a stiff dull old maid," 
we declare emphatically, and we unconsciously 
allow that idea to gather in voluminousness 
until we are absolutely incapable of seeing even 
a gleam of tenderness or humor in anything she 
says or does. 

"That man is a cheat: he cheated when he 
went to school with me," we register mentally 
every time a certain man passes us, and al- 
though he may have gone through the fiery 
furnace of affliction and come out from it enno- 
bled and exalted since his schoolboy days, yet 
that little cloud of prejudice blinds us forever 
from seeing the beauty in his face and character. 

The reason that we sometimes think strang- 
ers are more interesting than people whom we 
(47 ) 



Our Common Road 



have known all our lives is because we have not 
set prejudices about the strangers: we are ready 
to believe in them : they seem full of possibili- 
ties ; we find varying and delightful qualities in 
them. 

We limit our enjoyment by ceasing to expect 
and look for growth and change in those about 
us. We make up our minds, either carelessly or 
thoughtfully, that they are such and such types, 
and we let it go at that. This mental attitude 
of ours gathers as the twilight gathers in the 
darkening room, and we do not realize how be- 
nighted we are becoming until some outsider 
comes and tells us. 

That clownish youth you smile at may have 
great natural dignity ; that inefficient girl may 
have marvelous capacity. Watch them grow and 
unfold and develop, and every one who crosses 
your path will be engrossingly interesting. 

Help them, if you will, by believing in them 
and their potentialities, and if you do not care 
to help, at least do not hinder by measuring 
them by some rigidly stereotyped formula which 
you devised years ago. 

(48 ) 



Our Common Road 



Nearly every one is capable of nearly every- 
thing. Let us light the light, and dispel the stu- 
pid shadows of prejudice, and see how much 
zest there is in the world about us. 

& iy & 

WHAT MAKES A SACRIFICE 

When we give up some habit which we know 
is bad, we are often stunned to find that we 
have given up, along with the injurious element, 
other elements which were helpful, and even 
beautiful. And it is not until we come to the 
point where we see our actions in perspective 
that we learn that what makes a sacrifice is the 
relinquishing of not only that which is wrong 
and harmful, but the relinquishing also of what 
might under other conditions be wholly helpful 
and right. 

If you live in a house which is commodious 
and artistic and satisfactory in every way, and 
you discover that it is in an unhealthful location, 
or on the side of a volcano that may break forth 
any time, or that the walls may collapse without 

( 49 ) 



Our Common Ho ad 



warning, there is only one thing to do if you 
value your life, and that is, move out. And the 
wrench comes, not when you leave the unhealth- 
ful location or the treacherous hillside, but 
when you leave the convenience and the beauty. 
The hard thing to give up is the very thing 
which you feel ought not to be given up, and 
which, perhaps, if we were wiser and stronger, 
we should not have to lose. But since we are 
not very wise nor very strong we must ruth- 
lessly surrender everything, to save our lives, 
just as a man, caught in a desperate strait, will 
cut off his arm or his leg to save the rest of his 
body. 

Actions and habits and motives are compli- 
cated. A man may steal money to buy food 
for his children, and his stealing is the result of 
love and of parental protection. A woman who 
is married may fall in love with a man who is 
not her husband, and under the influence of 
that love find depths of tenderness and sympa- 
thy in her own heart that she never knew she 
possessed. The stealing is not utterly black; 
the loving is not wholly pernicious ; and yet 

( 50) 



Our Common Road 



both are so wrong that they must either be 
abandoned absolutely, with all their virtues as 
well as all their vices, or they will wreck the life 
from its foundations. 

There is no compromise possible with a real 
evil. It must all go, root and branch, at any 
cost. 

With trifling matters one may be able to 
modify ; to pick out the good from the bad. If 
late hours disagree with you, you need not, 
therefore, make an inexorable rule never, on 
any condition whatever, to stay up past a cer- 
tain hour. All you need is a little common 
sense to remind you that excess is bad in any 
form. 

But with vital matters treatment' must be 
radical and swift, even if much that is good is 
lost with that which is chiefly bad. 

You give up a trip to Europe because your 
mother needs you, and all your life long you 
are poorer in recollections and in culture. That 
was part of the sacrifice — the hardest part. Not 
that the trip would have brought you nothing 
helpful, for it would have brought you many 

( 51 ), 



Our Common Road 



things which now you can never have. But the 
other demand was stronger, and its fulfillment 
has brought something even better. 

When it is a vital matter nothing is too pre- 
cious to be offered, and the giving up of what 
might be beautiful as well as what is actually 
ugly is part of any sacrifice. 

* 18 & 

MAKING AN IMPRESSION 

People who live for the sake of impressing 
other people — and there are a surprising num- 
ber of these — are very much like children who 
think that the reflection which looks out at them 
from a mirror is not an image, but a real per- 
son. There is nothing more ephemeral than the 
effect which we produce upon those who casu- 
ally pass us, and yet some women spend more 
of their time and thought and money dressing 
for this very purpose than they spend in mak- 
ing themselves interesting to their friends, or 
comforting to their families, as the girl who pays 
six times more for an opera cloak to dazzle 

(52) 



Our Common Road 



strangers than she would for some pleasure or 
convenience which would enrich the whole fam- 
ily life. 

Showing off is a childish trick which still 
clings to many otherwise sensible adults. Study 
a box party at the theater and see how nearly 
all of the young girls composing it are preening 
and posing as though it were of momentous im- 
portance to the audience what they wore or the 
expression of their faces or the angles of their 
hats. A certain type of woman always brags 
before strangers just as a certain type of man 
always swaggers, putting in an incredible amount 
of effort in endeavoring to impress observers 
who never give them a second thought, if they 
do a first. 

It is commendable to do our part in adding 
to the gayety and attractiveness of the human 
procession. To dress pleasingly and to cultivate 
gentle manners and to be gracious and kind is 
our due to the other human beings with whom 
we share this goodly frame, the earth. But when 
this desire becomes paramount we have super- 
ficiality. 

( 53 ) 



Our Common Road 



What counts is what we are, not what we 
appear to be. Nobility of nature is what gives 
us genuine distinction. If half the time invested 
in vain endeavor to appear well-bred or well-read 
were used to become either of these things, the 
result would be vastly satisfactory. 

Our appearance, our very gestures and facial 
expressions are symbols of what we are within. 
When we begin to work from the outside and 
to lay on a veneer that has no true foundation, 
then we make all sorts of mistakes and commit 
a thousand blunders. 

And, after all, how vitally do our mere ac- 
quaintances or those many people whom we 
meet and pass, and who never become even 
acquaintances, care about us ? They are like a 
flowing stream ; our reflection is caught upon 
its surface one moment and is lost the next. 

Become what you wish to appear ; be what 
you admire, and the impression which you pro- 
duce will take care of itself. 



( 54 ) 



Our Common Road 



« I9 S> 
FORTUNE-TELLING 

It is considered a mark of ignorance to be- 
lieve in fortune-telling, and most of us smile 
patronizingly when an amateur starts to read 
our palms, and laugh to scorn the idea of going 
to a professional. 

But natural curiosity still lurks in our hearts, 
and we are all prone to speculate about the 
future at times, and to wonder " what is going 
to happen/' The young girl wonders whether 
she will marry, and whether her marriage will 
bring her happiness ; the young man wonders 
whether he will be successful in business, and 
older people muse whether old age will bring 
them contentment or loneliness. Everyone likes 
to conjecture, more or less, about the years and 
experiences that are coming, and it is surprising 
to know the number of people who actually go 
to palmists and astrologers and fortune-tellers 
of one kind or another. 

For the woman who queries about the future 
there is one infallible answer, for there is a law 

( 55 ) 



Our Common Road 



that can be applied to coming events just as ab- 
solutely as there is a mathematical law that can 
be applied to a mathematical problem. It is al- 
ways right, and always bound to be completely 
true, and this is it : Nothing can happen to you 
which is not in accordance with your nature. 
As Marcus Aurelius expressed it a long time 
ago : "Nothing can happen to a man which is 
not a human accident, nor to an ox which is 
not in the nature of an ox, nor to a vine which 
is not according to the nature of a vine, nor to 
a stone which is not proper to a stone." In 
other words, you will get out of the future just 
exactly what you are capable of getting, and 
what you are preparing for in the present. 

The young girl who wonders whether her 
marriage will be a happy one can be perfectly 
sure that if she is vain and selfish and lazy, no 
marriage in the world can be happy for her, and 
the. young man who wonders whether he will be 
successful in business can be assured that if 
he is industrious and honest, he cannot be 
wholly unsuccessful. The only thing that can 
possibly happen to you is the thing which grows 

( 56) 



Our Co??imon Road 



out of your own nature. Events may be unfore- 
seen, to be sure, but what makes an event is the 
manner in which it is received, and for that man- 
ner you are responsible. 

An event in itself is shapeless; it is the hand 
of our personality that moulds and colors it. 
You cannot tell whether you are going to have 
great wealth, but you can know now, just as well 
as in twenty years, that if you are greedy and 
worldly, you will never get enough wealth to 
satisfy you. You cannot tell whether you will 
ever travel, but you can know for a surety that 
if you do not refine your tastes and educate 
your capacities for appreciation and enjoyment, 
all the travel in the world will not make you 
cultivated. You cannot tell whether your old 
age will be lonely, but you can know that to a 
full mind and a tranquil heart no age can be 
miserable. 

We can all do our own fortune-telling with 
fair accuracy, after all, for the future holds 
nothing which is not a natural outgrowth of the 
present, and the present is on our hands to shape 
as we choose. 

• (57) 



Our Common Road 



<& 20 & 

IMITATION AND REALITY 

If you are very fond of the work of a certain 
writer or painter or musician and you always 
recognize and delight in that work whenever 
you see it, why is it that when you stumble upon 
an imitation you are irritated? 

It is not because the imitation is so much 
worse, for there are some imitations that are as 
good and even better than the originals. Imita- 
tion is frequently called the sincerest flattery, 
and many imitators frankly admit that they are 
only striving to follow as closely as they can in 
the footsteps of their prototype. 

The reason that many who truly love the 
original resent an imitation is that imitation im- 
plies something superficial — something coun- 
terfeit, and counterfeits are obnoxious to honest 
folk. 

For instance, a man admires Carlyle's rugged, 
hammering, majestic style, and he studies it and 
labors over it, and finally works his own style 
into practically an exact resemblance, and pub- 

( 58 ) 



Our Common Road 



lishes an essay so like one of Carlyle's that we 
almost believe it is by the great man himself. 
But instead of being delighted with his cunning 
artistry, we are annoyed, and the man and his 
work disgust us. As we reason it out, we find 
that, although the imitator caught the outward 
characteristics of Carlyle, he did not first attain 
those inner characteristics of which the outer 
ones are but symbols. It is as though he tried 
to sell roses which had never been planted in 
the good rich earth. The only roses which 
look like real ones and yet have no roots and 
have demanded no cultivation are paper roses. 
And so the man who copies another's work, 
without first living the life and becoming the 
very same sort of personality of which that work 
is the fruit, is no more the real thing than paper 
roses are the real thing. 

An actress who steals the mannerisms of an- 
other actress irritates the admirers of the first, 
because they feel that the little crooked smile 
of the model is indicative of a quizzical sense of 
humor, but when it is merely exploited as a facial 
expression for stage purposes it is meaningless. 
( 59 ) 



Our Common Road 



If you appreciate the playing of a certain 
musician and then hear another musician who 
merely copies certain specific effects, you laugh, 
because the performance is so ridiculous. Those 
effects are beautiful and moving only when they 
are the expression of the artistic soul of the 
true musician. In themselves they are nothing. 

Are we never to^learn from others, then? Is 
all acceptance of others' virtues and experiences 
only hypocrisy? Indeed, we are to learn from 
others, but we are to learn from the inside out, 
not from the outside in. 

If you admire a particular woman and wish 
to be like her, you will not succeed by auto- 
matically repeating all her acts and mannerisms. 
But if you try to appreciate her, to learn her 
motives, to understand the impulses that actu- 
ate her, you will get behind the exterior into the 
moving power that makes her what she is. 

And then some day you will be amazed to 
find that you have legitimately earned for your- 
self those traits and the expression of them 
which so pleased you in the woman you admire. 
Your work and your individuality will be just 

(60) 



Our Common Road 



as pleasing as hers, and no one will grudge it 
to you, nor feel irritated at your display of it, 
for it will be yours just as rightfully as it was 
hers, because you have won it from the foun- 
dation up. 

<a 21 # 

TEARING DOWN AND BUILDING UP 

The mother who sees her children growing 
gradually away from home influences ; the wife 
who feels her husband drifting beyond the recall 
of her anxious hand ; the friend who watches her 
friend becoming absorbed in other interests — 
how often we have seen these flung up by a 
cruel wave of fate and now standing together in 
a pitiful band, conscious that they have lost 
their hold on what they most love, and power- 
less, seemingly, to regain it. 

Sometimes stung by pain, they do the very 
thing which carries them away from the point 
they wish to gain. The scolding mother, wild 
with the maternal instinct to guide, through her 
very complaining alienates the child she is striv- 
ing to protect. The jealous wife drives away 
(61 ) 



Our Common Road 



her husband's confidence instead of inviting 
it ; the morose friend becomes so disagreeable 
that the other seeks companionship elsewhere. 
They are all looking at the thing from the 
wrong angle — working at it from the wrong 
end. 

It is not easy to think dispassionately about 
that which we feel passionately, but in spite of 
its difficulty we must do it if we wish to win. 
No matter how terrible or how sudden the 
exigency, the only thing to do is to decide upon 
a clear course of action and follow it — and not 
allow a sudden gust of emotion to spoil what we 
build so laboriously. 

And the secret of successful decision must be 
this : not to demolish the influences which are 
pulling the one we love away from us, but to 
strengthen the influences which are pulling her 
toward us. 

Thus the mother who is worried over her 
daughter's love of pleasure and fears lest it will 
lead her into frivolity and silly idleness will 
hardly counteract such a tendency by rigidly 
weeding out invitations and carefully chaperon- 

(62 ) 



Our Common Road 



ing and warning and forbidding. But by mak- 
ing home more attractive than elsewhere the 
daughter may be gently beguiled into staying 
in it, and bringing her friends and finding her 
pleasure there. 

The wife who is fearful lest some other wo- 
man gain her husband's admiration cannot pos- 
sibly prevent it by sweeping every other woman 
off the horizon ; all she can do is to make and 
keep herself as delightful, as comforting, and as 
satisfying to him as she can. 

We cannot dissipate the forces which war 
against us, but we can strengthen the forces 
which range themselves for us. All fundamental 
change must inevitably start from within ; it is 
the only logical, the only radical, the only pos- 
sible way. 

The stern parents who burned their little 
boy's violin because they disapproved of his 
devotion to it did not thereby wean his heart 
from music to them. To forbid this pursuit or 
make that one unattractive is the weaker and 
less sure course; to open another gate, to spread 
another table of bounty, to build up another 

( 63 ) 



Our Common Road 



tower of strength — this is the wiser, the better 
and the surer way. 

<% 22 & 

SHYNESS 

Shyness is one of those traits which a man 
may tell you that he possesses, but which he 
is perfectly astonished to hear that you possess 
also. Shyness is utterly irrelevant to anything 
else : you may have every reason for being self- 
confident and may even present an exterior of 
aggressiveness, and yet in your timorous and 
quaking heart know that you are the most fear- 
ful of persons. 

Frequently men and women who are called 
haughty and supercilious are, in reality, only 
sensitive to the point of panic, and protect them- 
selves by an armor of chilly reticence. Rank, 
wealth, position, class, age, sex — none of these 
things seems to have much to do with shyness. 
A ragged street urchin may be the quintessence 
of audacity, and the mistress of millions may 
suffer acutely every time she is introduced to a 
stranger. 

( 6 4 > 



Our Common Road 



Those friendships which we dub " so queer" 
are frequently the result of some one with initia- 
tive making the advance to some one devoid of 
it, and in such cases the wide divergencies of 
wealth or age become nothing. 

The little girl who sits at her apple-stand in 
the city and smiles timidly at her customers may 
touch the heart of the very purchaser of whom 
she stands in greatest awe — a purchaser who is 
one of those repressed and solitary individuals 
incapable of revealing even the slightest respon- 
siveness, and yet craving human sympathy with 
almost terrible avidity. 

Those happy ones who are blessed with 
ingenuous natures, who turn candidly and un- 
abashed to all they meet, are fortunate, indeed. 
Such a disposition is a gift and a grace in itself. 

We should not be too diffident to be kind, 
nor to make simple advances, for we can never 
tell when we may touch a heart that is freezing 
in its aching isolation. Young people are often 
afraid of grown people; older people nervous 
with young ones. The very rich are sometimes 
tongue-tied in the presence of the very poor ; 

(6 5 ) 



Our Common Road 



the obscure woman trembles before her famous 
sister. And all the time the one who is inspiring 
these sensations of terror may be cowering in 
his or her boots. One way to get over your shy- 
ness is to realize that probably the very person 
before whom you inwardly quail is secretly fright- 
ened of you — it makes no difference that you 
are her junior, or her inferior, or her senior or 
superior. Heroes have trembled before valets, 
and famous writers blanched before their cooks. 
A cat may look at a king, the old nursery 
rhyme assures us, and we may smile at whom we 
will, and when we please. Let us not be afraid to 
be friendly : that stern, abstracted old lady who 
looks so fiercely from under her shaggy brows 
may be longing to have us speak to her ! 

<3 23 s> 

BEING ROOTED 

It is easy for us to pity people whose lot 

seems very different from our own, particularly 

if ours is a pleasant one. This is especially true 

in the case of the woman with a house and fam- 

( 66 ) 



Our Common Road 



ily, and the woman with neither. The woman 
with no fixed abode, who boards, or travels, or 
visits, either through choice or necessity, always 
seems to her more normal sister to be unhappily 
situated. It may be her preference; there are 
people to whom a hotel life, foot-loose and free, 
is the happiest life imaginable. And although to 
you, sitting by your cozy fireside, or settling 
down in your old, familiar easy-chair, such a 
nomadic existence is forlornity itself, yet you 
must take their word that that is what they like, 
and wish them joy of it. 

But there is a great army of homeless ones 
who are uprooted through no wish or no fault 
of their own: the superannuated school teacher 
whose meager pittance only enables her to board 
in shabby gentility among strangers ; the poor 
relation who out-stays her welcome as she moves 
from house to house of those more fortunate 
ones on whom she has some slight claim ; the 
business woman whose business means ceaseless 
journeying on railroads and ceaseless eating and 
sleeping in hotels ; the wealthy woman whose 
days of active usefulness seem over, whose chil- 

(6 7 ) 



Our Common Road 



dren are married, whose husband is gone, and 
who closes up the empty mansion to embark 
upon the lonely trail of travel. 

These are the uprooted ones ; rudely torn 
from any fixed abiding-place, like the tragic 
Salathiel, condemned to wander the face of the 
earth. Among men this kind of unstable life fre- 
quently produces an unstable character; drifting 
from place to place with no ties, no obligations, 
no civic duties, no definite position in the com- 
munity, is demoralizing. But with women it 
saddens rather than demoralizes. Woman's in- 
stinct is a homemaking one, and when its right- 
ful channel is denied, her animation fades. 

But what is she to do ? How can a person with- 
out a dwelling, without standing, maintain her 
perspective, her cheerfulness, her background ? 
Is it possible for her to create an atmosphere 
of permanence when there is not and never can 
be any permanence in reality for her ? It is not 
easy, but it is possible. There are certain strong 
characters which always maintain themselves ; 
which create their own background no matter 
where they are thrown ; which may be without 
( 68 ) 



Our Common Road 



a continuing city, and yet remain firmly estab- 
lished. The secret of such a character is that it 
has its root, not in any house, not in any com- 
munity, but in its own soul, in its own stand- 
ards, its own personality. 

There are some women who wherever they 
are make that place home. They radiate com- 
fort, toleration, and serenity. There are some 
women who, wherever they are, make a center 
for civic betterment : their very presence com- 
mands order, lawfulness, and justice. These 
women impress themselves upon their fellows 
even if they are without a roof-tree and without 
an abiding-place. 

No one need be wholly uprooted whose roots 
lay hold of the simple realities ; no one need be 
utterly homeless who looks at all the world as 
home, and all men and women as brothers and 
sisters. It is the mental viewpoint, not the phys- 
ical, which holds the great solution, and those 
who achieve it, through struggle and through 
faith, will at last come into a broader outlook 
and a deeper strength than they might ever 
enter otherwise. 

( 6 9 ) 



Our Common Road 



<$ 24 & 

BIOGRAPHY AND LIFE 

There are few things more stimulating to one 
who is getting discouraged with one's endeav- 
ors than the simple recital of just such struggles 
and failures in splendid or gifted lives. There 
are few things more instructive to one who is 
bewildered with one's own potentialities and de- 
ficiencies than the story of how a similar tem- 
perament picked its way through the sloughs 
and pitfalls and finally stood upon firm ground. 

The letters of men of genius are enlightening 
in their simplicity ; their autobiographies com- 
forting in their humanity. 

Does the daily routine grow tiresome ? Turn 
to the life of some author whose point of view 
is congenial ; you may discover the secret with 
which he wrested, from the dullest days and the 
most obvious experiences, significance and in- 
terest. Is your work limiting in its confine- 
ment? Read the adventures of some romantic 
soul, or, if you prefer, open to the quiet pages 
of days just as dreary, just as difficult as your 

( 70) 



Our Common Road 



own, and see how mentality or spirituality have 
illumined them for others. 

There is usually some subject which makes its 
especial appeal to us, although we may never 
have had the opportunity of studying it. Is it 
art? The lives of the artists will teach you more 
than any critique on the subject. Is it music? 
Learn the struggles, the experiments, the trag- 
edies of great composers. The theater? Step 
with famous actors behind the curtain and see 
what happens there. Is it politics? Come into 
contact with the problems, the triumphs, and the 
defeats of the statesmen who have made history. 

There is always a distinguished company 
waiting for us to join it in imagination, and no 
one need be narrow-minded who can walk in 
companionship with the wise, the brilliant, and 
the brave — not the creation of human pens, 
but of human life, and time, and actual expe- 
rience. 

Why gossip about our neighbors ? There are 
far more interesting things to learn about far 
more interesting people. Why wonder hope- 
lessly if we ever find a way out of our difficul- 

( 71 ) 



Our Common Road 



ties ? There have been many who have gone the 
selfsame way before, and left their record behind 
to tell us of the way. 

There is something inexpressibly thrilling in 
the account of lives which have been endured 
through stress, through discouragement, belated 
appreciation, deferred hope — in just the way 
we have to endure our smaller trials — until the 
end, or even until after the worldly end, when 
they finally attained their success. 

And as we read a story of long years of de- 
feat and seemingly endless failures, and then, 
perhaps at the very last, the triumph, either of 
personality or of actual achievement, no matter 
how commonplace we may be, or how many 
opportunities we may have let slip, there still 
seems to be a possibility for us, too, to attain a 
certain nobility and beauty and understanding 
of our days. 

A PLEA FOR PLAYFULNESS 

Those drearily righteous folk who preach the 
duty of every one to be cheerful, usually pre- 

( n ) 



Our Common Road 



sent the subject in such rigid and comfortless 
terms that even the friskiest spirit is dampened 
and plunged into irritated bad humor. When 
cheerfulness becomes a duty it also becomes a 
bore, and while we must be grateful to the mo- 
rose man for simulating pleasantness, yet the 
persistently chirrupy optimist is a trial to the 
flesh. 

But there is something between the gloom of 
dejection and the glare of perpetual animation, 
a something which might be called the frolic- 
some spirit. Few people realize how much zest 
may be infused into the simplest things by al- 
lowing the natural instinct for playfulness a lit- 
tle freer rein. 

Not the practical joker who makes life a ter- 
ror for all within his reach, not the caustic wit, 
not the silly girl, but the woman with a genuine 
streak of gayety in her makeup is a delight. An 
airy buoyancy makes in any task the difference 
of a chore and a pleasure. Grimly weeding a 
strawberry bed is a depressing occupation ; 
blithely weeding it is a joy. 

Occasionally we find some woman who has 
. (73) 



Our Common Road 



kept alive this spirit of playfulness and imparts 
to every one in her immediate circle a touch of ex- 
hilaration that is fascinating. She is the mother, 
who, when the house is topsy-turvy, makes a 
picnic out of it. She is the wife who turns a 
joke instead of a grievance out of a misunder- 
standing ; she is the older sister who helps 
the younger members of the family, not with 
grudgingness, but with gayety. 

There are some households where frolicsome- 
ness is unknown. There are no pranks, no rol- 
licking, no jollity. Some one may tell a funny 
story occasionally and all the rest may smile, but 
there is no real hilarity. This is a pity, for sport- 
iveness is a genuine charm, and laughter does 
much to alleviate the weariness of living. 

Playfulness implies a sense of humor, but this 
is not its mainspring. It comes chiefly from a 
nature that sees the lightness as well as the 
shadow, the absurdity as well as the seriousness, 
in any situation. 

Most of us have a capacity for joyousness, 
but we either crush it out or confine it in the 
lumbering vehicle of dutiful cheerfulness. 
( 74 ) 



Our Common Road 



Cheerfulness is a much-abused word, and 
seems to cover everything from saccharine sen- 
timentality to levity and flippancy. But play- 
fulness has not yet come into its own. It de- 
serves both cultivation and appreciation. It is 
the dash of color, the snap of flavor that makes 
all the difference between a glum day and a 
bright one. It is the merry cap and bells that 
lightly drive dull care away. 



To the House of Friendship 
<& i e> 

REFORMING YOUR FRIENDS 

Reforming your friends — it can't be done. 
If you do reform them they cease to be your 
friends, and become your satellites — or your 
enemies. 

It is a curious trait in some women to be 
perfectly unable to keep their hands off any- 
body. The more they love you, the more they 
want to reform you. They want to make you 
sympathetic or serious-minded or interested in 
politics. From the highest and most disinter- 
ested motives in the world they want to man- 
age your affairs. 

They feel perfectly confident that if you would 
take their advice, your children would all be 
healthy, your husband would renew his youth, 
your servants would stay, and that you would 
cut a dash in society. 

There are women who as soon as they come 
( 79) 



Our Common Road 



into your house tell you how to rehang your 
pictures, and suggest ways to simplify your 
housekeeping. These women are all right : they 
are splendid managers, and they ought to be in 
positions of authority where they would have 
some chance for their powers of organization 
and reformation. But in private life they are 
terrors. They are magnificent as masters, but 
impossible as friends. 

A friendship is one of the most precious things 
in the world, and like all precious things it can- 
not be too delicately handled. What do you 
seek in your own friends? You want sympathy, 
understanding, affection, mutual interests. You 
get incredible comfort in just knowing that there 
is some one who rejoices in your happiness and 
sorrows in your grief, who really cares what hap- 
pens to you and what you do. If you want com- 
pany, you go to your friends, and if you want 
advice, you go to them, and we all want advice 
sometimes. But none of us wants our private af- 
fairs seized with a rough hand and whipped into 
shape. They are our own private affairs, and, al- 
though some one else might get them into better 

( so ) 



Our Common Road 



shape than we ever could, yet most of us have 
an unreasonable preference for doing it our own 
way. There is nothing that the average, self-re- 
specting person resents so heartily as being bul- 
lied, and managed and dictated to. 

Why not enjoy our friends instead of trying 
to reform them ? To be sure, that household 
keeps outrageous hours, and you are morally 
certain that if they went to bed at ten o'clock 
and had breakfast at eight, instead of retiring at 
one o'clock and eating breakfast on their way 
to the front gate, they would be healthier and 
happier. So they would, but they will never do 
it for all your protestations. The best thing you 
can do is to see that your own family get to bed 
at ten, and accept the other family as they are. 
And maybe, some day, seeing how happy and 
healthy your family is, or wishing to please you 
because of their genuine affection, they will re- 
form themselves. 

If you just remain an unobtrusive and loyal 
old standby, your influence will count for some- 
thing, and some day you may be surprised to 
know of the difference you have made in the 

( 81 ) 



Our Common Road 



lives of all who know you. But you cannot do 
it by starting in with hammer and tongs to 
make the world go around the other way. It 
will never do it — never — and you will just 
have to give it up at last, very tired, and no one 
will care in the least. 

<& 2 e> 

PITY AND SENTIMENTALISM 

Women are frequently accused of being sen- 
timentalists, and one of the most usual ways that 
this sentimentalism is displayed is in morbid 
sympathy. It is a well-known fact that as soon 
as a man is legally condemned as a criminal, let- 
ters and gifts and tokens of condolence from 
women begin to deluge him. He might have 
been a hard-working, respectable citizen for 
forty years, and no one would be in the least 
interested in him. But let him murder his wife 
and be sentenced to death, and a great wave of 
pity surges through the feminine hearts through- 
out the land. 

Pity is one of the most divine of all human 

(82) 



Our Common Road 



attributes. There should not be an iota less of it 
in the world. But why treasure it so carefully 
for some spectacular occasion? Why be unwill- 
ing to release a grain of it unless there is some 
tremendous pressure or some glaringly obvious 
cause? Children catch at gayly colored things, 
and it is the grown people of childish minds who 
cannot feel anything appealing in the dull, gray 
lives of the sober and sad men and women around 
them, but need huge pictures and newspaper 
headlines to indicate to them where calamity 
has struck. 

A hard-working and decent woman who 
sought aid of some charitable organization was 
turned away because it had no committee to 
handle her particular case, and as she departed 
she remarked bitterly that it seemed necessary 
to have committed some horrible sin before 
one could enlist commiseration. 

A new charitable cause is espoused and a 
thousand women rush to its support. After a few 
years the novelty wears off and the women drop 
away — although the need continues and may 
be greater than ever before. The pity given 

( 8 3 ) 



Our Common Road 



under an emotional strain is not pity at all ; it 
is a sort of sentimental hysteria. Pity is some- 
thing that sees beneath the superficial appeal to 
the great silent inarticulate need of those who 
are suffering. It reaches out to the stupid and 
blundering as well as to the brilliant and mis- 
guided. It goes out not only in the first flush 
of enthusiasm, but when the flush has died, and 
there is a long blank stretch of weariness and 
discouragement. 

Do you think you are a compassionate wo- 
man? Is your heart so sensitive that the tears 
start to your eyes when you see a lonely little 
child shivering in the cold ? And is it so sensi- 
tive that when your tears have dried you still 
remember the child, and all other children every- 
where who are shivering, too, and are lonely ? 
Is your pity so great that when every one else 
has deserted the woman who is unfortunate, you 
will keep on hoping for her, even if she has lost 
hope for herself? Through dull days and waste 
days is your tenderness still glowing ? Or must 
you have a little stimulus in the way of spec- 
tacular developments or tragic complications ? 

(84) 



Our Common Road 



Not less pity, but a finer grade of pity — that 
is what we should give. Pity for the one who 
is struggling as well as for the one who has 
struggled and failed. Constructive sympathy 
that helps build up broken lives as well as 
brooding sentimentalism that merely weeps over 
the sorrows of the world. Real pity for real men 
and women — not morbid emotionalism for ab- 
normal unfortunates — this is the pity that the 
world needs. 

* 3 * 

WHAT THEY SAID THEY WANTED 

They were sitting at one of those small 
round tables in a smoky, music-jarred cafe, and 
the man with the tired look around his eyes was 
talking ruminatively : " My wife tries to get me 
to go to concerts with her," he was saying, " but 
I don't like the kind of music you hear at 
fashionable concerts. I 'm not saying that the 
music is n't very fine and all that, but I 'd like to 
hear some old-fashioned tunes. Now, if they 'd 
play c Annie Laurie ' and some of the old bal- 
lads, I 'd enjoy it immensely.'' 

(85 ) 



Our Common Road 



" I know it," agreed the other more elderly 
man ; " I 'm tired of all this new-fangled stuff 
myself. I like a picture you can see. This pres- 
ent-day output that tangles you up whatever 
way you look at it does n't appeal to me." 

They both puffed at their cigars a moment 
and then the man with the tired look around 
his eyes remarked : " I tell you men are sick of 
all this. Why, even the flowers are so fixed up 
and cultivated that you don't know them. What 
do I care for an orchid ? I 'd rather have a hand- 
ful of daisies any day. I 'm not saying my taste 
is better or worse than any one else's; I 'm just 
saying what I 'd like, and what half the men I 
know would like — old-fashioned things : old- 
fashioned music, old-fashioned flowers, and" — 
he smiled a little wistfully — "old-fashioned 
girls." 

The other man smiled, too, and then he re- 
peated thoughtfully: "Yes, old-fashioned girls; 
we 're just sick for them, are n't we ? " 

Just what those two men meant by old-fash- 
ioned girls is not entirely clear. Being middle- 
aged gentlemen, they were probably going back 
( 86) 



Our Common Road 



in their minds to the time when they were young 
men, and the girls they knew embodied — at 
least to them — the graces and charms of all 
femininity. Now, looking out at the world with 
less ardent eyes, they are somewhat aghast 
at their sophisticated daughters and dashing 
daughters-in-law. The breezy girl who shakes 
them by the hand so strenuously that they are 
numb to the elbow for half an hour after, the 
vivacious woman who circles around and around 
them in her animated and epigrammatic talk — 
these had, perhaps, somewhat wearied the two 
gentlemen in the cafe. Then, too, they might 
have been thinking of the type of girl who used 
to please them a good many years ago. They 
might have been recalling, in something of a 
rosy haze, a girl with pink cheeks, smooth hair, 
gentle manners, and quiet voice ; a girl who was 
not extraordinarily clever, but who was sweet, 
just as the simple flowers that grew in mother's 
garden were sweet. 

Few of us want the modern girl to go back 
to the days of her grandmother. We like her 
better as she is ; we enjoy her, we admire her, 
( 87) 



Our Common Road 



we respect her. But sometimes, perhaps, it does 
no harm to let our minds dwell for a little while 
on that other type of girl — the girl who was 
obedient to her mother, respectful to her father, 
and modest to all the world. Sometimes, per- 
haps, it does no harm to let the conversation of 
the two middle-aged gentlemen come to us 
through the crash and hurly-burly of modern 
life, as it came that day through the noise and 
smoke of the cafe — to hear the man with the 
tired look around his eyes say wistfully : " What 
half the men I know want is old-fashioned 
things — old-fashioned music, old-fashioned 
flowers, and old-fashioned girls.'* 

<& 4 £> 

THE PEOPLE IN OUR OWN TOWN 

The people we have always known — the 
people in our own town — how fond we are of 
them in a certain comfortable way, and how little 
interest we really feel in them. 

Two girls go to college and become fast 
friends, finding incredible attractiveness in one 
(88) 



Our Common Road 



another; but had they chanced to come from 
the same town instead of different towns, they 
might never have discovered one another. A 
brother can never see why another fellow should 
fall in love with his sister. " Sister — why, she's 
all right, she's bully, but — " To him there is 
nothing mysterious, nothing elusive or fascinat- 
ing about " Sister." There is solid worth and 
reliability, maybe, but nothing to bewitch, en- 
snare, and captivate. 

And so it is with the people in our neighbor- 
hood. We like them, respect them, and are fond 
of them in an offhand kind of way, but there is 
nothing about them that fires our imagination. 
A striking girl comes visiting from a distant city 
and falls in love with some young man with 
whom we went to school, and we marvel. We 
see nothing romantic about that man : we re- 
member perfectly well when we washed his face 
with snow or saw him in some other ignominious 
plight and jeered at him with all the cruelty of 
youth. And yet here is a girl who finds in him 
the consummation of her ideal! 

Strange ? Yes, and quite natural, too. So often 

. ( 8 9 ) 



Our Common Road 



we credit familiar figures with all the virtues and 
none of the graces, and need a newcomer to point 
out to us the charms of our own neighborhood. 

For there are two ways of knowing people. 
There is the way that comes from constant and 
long association. You know everything about 
your near-by neighbor; how she lives and where 
she lives; you know her family history and the 
outline of her life ; you see her frequently and 
are familiar with the way her clothes are cut and 
the way she sniffs through her nose, and yet you 
have never caught a glimpse of her soul. 

And there is another woman you know in an 
entirely different way. You know practically 
nothing about her daily life, but you feel her 
personality. You meet occasionally and exchange 
ideas ; your affection for each other is genuine, 
and neither of you is hampered by cast-off preju- 
dices. You know the essentials and not the 
non-essentials — you know the woman and not 
merely things about her. 

There are advantages to this dual system. A 
certain restfulness comes with the knowledge 
that your inner life cannot be molested by your 

(90) 



Our Common Road 



family or your neighbors, because none of them 
takes the trouble to think whether or not you 
have an inner life. 

But here and there are rare people who have 
the genius to appreciate what is near at hand. 
To them all the world is vibrant with interest. 
They see in their next-door neighbor what we 
have to travel the world over to find. But most 
of us — how far afield we go in search of won- 
ders ! Your enchanted land — is it some Italian 
town, some village in Cornwall or in Spain ? Is 
it in snowy Russia or brave Denmark? Could 
it possibly be here, close to you, alive with 
people quaint, or charming, or stimulating, or 
romantic — the people of your own town? 

* 5 * 

SELFISH AND UNSELFISH FRIENDSHIP 

A friend is fondly supposed to be a comfort, 
a solace, a joy. We like to believe that our 
friends love us whatever we do, and in what- 
ever way we do it. We think of them as sym- 
pathetic, eager to forward our interests, anxious 

( 91 > 



Our Common Road 



for our happiness. And it is only after a good 
many rude awakenings that we come to the 
rather somber conclusion that this is only true 
of a very few of the people we like to call friends, 
and that a great number of people are just as 
selfish in their friendships as they are in any of 
the other relationships of life. 

Have you never gone for a few days' flying 
trip to some other city, and having a limited 
time at your disposal, or some important busi- 
ness to do, you have not let your friends know 
of your whereabouts ? One of them chances 
upon you on the street, and instead of welcom- 
ing you she immediately begins to scold you 
because you did not come and stay with her. 
After you have meekly listened and offered 
your explanation, you leave her, feeling very 
sorry instead of very glad that you happened 
to meet. Perhaps you run into another, are 
scolded again, and finally you leave the city feel- 
ing a great deal more uncomfortable than if you 
had met four or five of your worst enemies 
instead of your best friends. 
* The same thing holds true of letter-writing. 

(92 ) 



Our Common Road 



How frequently we receive letters from our 
friends containing brief news and long re- 
proaches for our not writing. What pleasure is 
there in either sending or receiving such epistles ? 
The people who get offended because you do 
not call, who take it as a personal affront because 
you cannot accept invitations — what trials they 
are ! 

We want to feel that our friends love us as 
we are, and that they believe that we love them. 
If they do not understand why we do or do not 
do things, at least they believe that we have 
some adequate reason. The friend who never 
questions, who never scolds, who is glad to see 
us when we do come and not hurt when we 
cannot come or do not come, is one of the 
compensations of life. She is thinking of our 
happiness and convenience and not of her own. 
She is unselfish in her friendship. 

Yes, we all know the kind of a friend we like. 
What kind of a friend are you ? 



(93) 



Our Common Road 



* 6 %> 

SOCIAL AND BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS 

Women to-day are going into the public and 
professional life that was formerly entered only 
by men, and, therefore, they should learn some 
of the things which men have long known. One 
of these is not to confuse social and business 
relationships. 

It is not so much in regard to her actions 
that the average woman needs enlightenment, 
but it is in regard to her point of view. We all 
know that the stenographer who slides from her 
position as stenographer into one of confidential 
friend of her employer is doing an unwise thing. 
She is paid to write his letters, not to listen to 
his domestic troubles or advise him about his 
clothes and boarding-place. There is something 
peculiarly under-bred in flirting with the men 
one meets in a purely business way, and in try- 
ing to get on a social footing when it is work 
and not play that furnishes the opportunity. 
Most intelligent women realize this, and let 
their relationships with the men they meet rest 

( 94 ) 



Our Common Road 



just where the natural circumstances throw 
them. 

But regulating one's actions is always easier 
than changing one's point of view, and it is on 
the point of view that many women fail. For 
instance, a woman goes to hear some well-known 
man lecture. "What do you think of him?" 
asks her husband. "Oh, I think he is horrid," 
she replies; "he uses bad grammar, and his coat 
was so dusty it was a disgrace." She entirely for- 
gets that she went to hear a public man lecture, 
not to meet a social friend. It was the man's 
speech and individuality, not his superficial char- 
acteristics, that should matter in this instance. 

" I always liked to read Chesterton until I 
heard that he ate with his knife," a woman said 
the other day. Now the fact that Chesterton 
does or does not eat with his knife has little to 
do with his essays. You may be interested in 
this bit of biographical information, but it need 
not affect your enjoyment of his writings. Of 
course, if you are asked to dine with him, you 
may refuse, if you consider that he is not in 
your social stratum. 

(95) 



Our Common Road 



What people are socially is a very real thing, 
but it is not the only thing. There are many 
other qualities that go to make up a human 
personality, and if you are not intelligent enough 
to perceive them, you will lose a great deal in 
this world. 

We should all learn to meet people on other 
grounds than those of class: to think of them 
as standing for this or that principle or idea, as 
pegs on which to hang our plans, or characters 
in our day's drama, or as human beings strug- 
gling toward very much the same end that we 
ourselves are struggling toward, but not only and 
solely as presentable or unpresentable ballroom 
decorations. We should accept them for what 
they are, where they are, and not toss them aside 
because they are not in our particular class. If 
they are good of their own class, — no matter 
what that class is, — they are as admirable and 
as interesting as any one else. 

Remember that the social ground on which 
to meet one's fellows is a very narrow one. We 
may keep it as narrow as we please, if we do 
not forget that it is not everything there is. Do 

(96) 



Our Common Road 



not confuse social and business relationships. 
Learn to meet people on other grounds. 

<a 7 s> 

EUPHEMISM 

It is characteristic of most of us to be euphe- 
mistic in regard to ourselves. We veil our dis- 
agreeable qualities with as pleasant terms as we 
can. We are "sensitive/' not " touchy " ; we are 
" vivacious/' not " noisy." We insist patheti- 
cally that our disagreeableness is " frankness/' 
and our crankiness " nerves." 

Euphemism is an excellent habit. There are 
so many undisguisably harsh things in the world 
that we should be grateful to any one who 
smooths off the rough corners, or permits only 
a subdued light to fall on glaring faults. But 
the trouble with many euphemistically inclined 
persons is that they only use the art in regard 
to themselves. Thus, when they are dull they 
call it pensive, but when you are dull they call 
it sulky. And that is exasperating. 

There are always two ways of judging any- 
(97 ) ' 



Our Common Road 



thing. Sometimes there are twenty, but always 
there are two. And if you want to be happy, 
you will learn to judge in the most kindly and 
most merciful way. Since we cannot know, in 
the last analysis, the exact motive for any action, 
why not think the best instead of the worst ? 

Your neighbor's daughter may not live at 
home because she does not like her mother or 
because her mother does not like her; but she 
may not live at home because the climate does 
not agree with her, or because she can earn 
more money and do more for the household by 
living somewhere else. There are a dozen rea- 
sons why she may not live at home, and since 
you are not going to do anything about it, any- 
way, but are so constituted that you cannot rest 
until you have decided — why not decide upon 
the most euphemistic probability ? 

The other day a big automobile ran into a 
little one and nearly killed the two boys in the 
latter. The ladies in the big touring-car were so 
sensitive that they nearly fainted, and demanded 
instant and prolonged attention upon recovery. 
Later, when the case was brought up in court, 

( 98 ) 



Our Common Road 



much stress was laid upon the sensitiveness of 
the ladies and their nervous shock. The condi- 
tion of the mother of the injured boys never 
seemed to occur to them, and yet one might 
reasonably expect a truly sensitive person to 
recognize other people's nerves as well as his 
own. 

Listen to a mother describe her child. You 
always thought the boy a loutish, clumsy, un- 
practical chap, but she tells you with glowing 
eyes that he is gentle, and strong, and full of 
idealism. Which is right? The mother, of 
course. The one who loves us the best always 
understands us the most searchingly . Our friends 
and not our enemies are truest judges. 

Euphemism should be cultivated, not discour- 
aged. But it should be cultivated to make the 
complete circle. Call your morbidness " interest 
in the psychological " if you wish. Maybe it is. 
At all events, we can give it the benefit of the 
doubt. But call your neighbor's tendency by 
the same polite term. That is only fair. 



(99) 



Our Common Road 



« 8 * 

PEOPLE WE ARE AFRAID OF 

You admit that if you should be introduced 
to the King of England, you might be embar- 
rassed. You will probably agree that if you 
suddenly met a hungry cannibal, you would be 
afraid. But if any one should ask you how 
many other people you were afraid of, you 
would reply glibly, "Why, nobody. " Yet the 
fact of the matter is that all of us but the most 
courageous are most miserably under the ty- 
ranny of an entire class of people, just as com- 
pletely as the serfs were under the tyranny of 
their overlords. To explain : — 

A young woman in a restaurant will study 
the menu card for several minutes and finally 
timidly suggest to the condescending waitress 
that she would like a certain twenty-five-cent 
dish. The waitress takes the order disdainfully, 
and the young woman, ashamed of seeming 
stingy, hurriedly caps it by asking for a forty- 
cent dessert. She really does not want a sixty- 
five-cent luncheon and she cannot afford it, but 
( I0 ° ) 



Our Common Road 



she is so shaken by the haughty scorn of the 
waitress that she orders it and chokes it down, 
and with it her feeling of rebellion. 

Has your heart never gone out in sympathy 
to some customer who, completely unnerved 
by the saleswoman's lofty " Of course, you 
cannot get any smart hat for less than fifteen 
dollars," murmurs eagerly," Oh, of course not." 
She knows that she can afford to spend three 
dollars and fifty cents for her hat, and she has 
a miserable feeling that the saleswoman, for all 
her grand air, knows it, too, and so after a polite 
hesitation she frames some patent excuse and 
fades vaguely away. 

We think it very funny when some girl tells 
us about the agonies she suffered when she was 
visiting and the imperious lady's-maid unpacked 
her suitcase and discovered the meagerness and 
general inelegance of her night apparel. But we 
do not think it so funny when the desk-man at 
a hotel looks at us contemptuously and says 
incredulously, "A dollar room?" We falter 
hastily: "Oh, no. Something — a little — a good 
deal — a little better than that, please"; and 
( ioi ) 



Our Common Road 



then despise ourselves for being so easily in- 
fluenced. 

It is not funny. It is acutely painful. Perhaps 
we could break away from this thralldom — 
which is no chimera, but a reality, with the dire 
results of a flattened pocketbook and an extreme 
irritation — if we remembered that these men and 
women to whom we are in such abject sub- 
servience are not really dukes and duchesses, 
but merely quite commonplace mortals, and 
perfectly familiar with the process of trying to 
make one dollar do the work of two. 

The saleswoman who assures you that you 
cannot buy a hat for less than fifteen dollars prob- 
ably pays a dollar-ninety-eight for hers, if she 
pays that much. That impressive waiter does 
not order squab for his own dinner. The bored 
aristocrat at the theater box-office would not 
buy orchestra seats if he were going to witness 
the performance. Let us stand together, pluck 
up our courage and look them squarely in the 
eye, and say firmly, " I want the best I can get 
for the money, and this is all the money I have." 
Perhaps we shall find them human, after all. 
( IQ 2 ) 



Our Common Road 



Perhaps we can free ourselves from this an- 
cient and ignominious bondage, and begin to 
save our money and to get what we really want. 

<e 9 s> 

THE MEN THAT WOMEN LIKE 

There is a very prevalent theory that women 
— even nice women — prefer " men of the world M 
to solid, respectable ones. This theory is usually 
advanced by some elderly lady who shudders 
with fear and horror at the mere sight of any 
but the mildest manifestations of the male species, 
or by some unprepossessing youth who fails to 
get the girl he wants and sees some fellow whom 
he considers his mental or moral inferior dash 
in and win the day. 

And women rarely refute the accusation. 
They confess covertly to themselves that the 
so-called worldly men of their acquaintance are 
rather more attractive than the others, and there- 
fore they accept the criticism as true. But if they 
would think about it a little they would soon 
discover just what it is they like in men. A del- 
( I0 3 ) 



Our Common Road 



icately minded girl does not like a man because 
he is a roue> but she likes many of the quali- 
ties that such a man takes time to cultivate, and 
that the other type of man does not. 

Too frequently the young man with a char- 
acter of pure gold is so flagrantly careless about 
his appearance and the small courtesies that a 
well-bred girl, who knows how things should 
be done, cannot enjoy his society. She might 
be glad when she is fifty that she had married 
a high-minded scholar and a man of integrity, 
and if he had won distinction in some field of 
letters or of business no one would mind if he 
were a little rusty or untidy. But when she is 
twenty, the average girl takes small pleasure in 
entertaining or being entertained by a man who 
neglects to have his shoes polished, his clothes 
pressed, or his hair cut. She is irritated when 
he forgets her tastes or ignores her foibles, and 
lets her hunt up her own chair or pay her own 
car-fare. 

For the sophisticated man never forgets the 
little things. He dresses carefully and spotlessly, 
knowing that the ugliest man can be attractive 
( 104 ) 



Our Common Road 



if he carries himself with dignity and takes 
time to attend to the details that mark the dif- 
ference between the prepossessing gentleman and 
the unpresentable person. The sophisticated 
man is — outwardly, at least — thoughtful, con- 
siderate, and charming. He may not spend more 
time or more money than another, but whenever 
he does a thing he does it so exquisitely that any 
woman must be delighted. He knows that no 
attention is too small to be gracefully rendered 
if one would please a woman, and if he only 
pays her car-fare he does it as if it were such 
a privilege that even that small attention becomes 
the sweetest flattery. 

No, nice women do not prefer men who are 
not nice. They prefer charming men to boors, 
and entertaining men to bores. But the girl of 
to-day is too sensible to prefer a dissipated man 
to a temperate one, or a roue to an honorable 
gentleman. 

And the girl of to-day is too resourceful, also, 

to be utterly dependent upon any man. Much 

as she enjoys men's society, she is perfectly able 

to get along without either the fascinating ad- 

( 105 ) 



Our Common Road 



venturer of unsavory repute, or the blunderer 
who forgets his manners, or who is unwilling to 
spend any money or any time in giving her 
happiness or any effort to learn what would 
please her. 

<a 10 & 

HOME TRUTHS 

Home truths are a peculiar body of facts. 
Every real family has a more or less voluminous 
accumulation of them — the accumulation of 
each family being very like that of every other 
family in main outline, but elaborated to fit 
various situations and idiosyncrasies. 

Probably since earliest history small brothers 
have thought their older sisters "stuck-up," and 
older sisters thought their small brothers "rude." 
And probably since earliest history they have 
voiced their opinions in extremely simple, direct 
Saxon terms. 

But, like many other old-fashioned things, 
home truths seem to have fallen into disrepute 
of late. This does not mean that they are not 
( 106 ) 



Our Common Road 



offered with the same eagerness and emphasis as 
i of yore, but that nowadays it is the fashion for 
them to be disdainfully repudiated by the should- 
be recipient. For instance, if a young girl is as- 
sured by her friends that she is delightfully 
vivacious, and when her mother tells her gravely 
that it is not vivacity but pertness, the young 
girl is very apt to toss her head, — vivaciously 
or pertly according to whichever standard you 
accept, — and, remarking that her mother does 
not "understand her," seek the consolation of 
more admiring friends. The young man who 
glories in his reputation among his associates 
for being " temperamental" allows the unkind 
definition of " grumpiness " in his family circle 
to slip inconspicuously off his shoulders. A 
woman who likes to think she is an accom- 
plished coquette disbelieves a disgusted family 
when they remark she is a vulgar flirt. 

Home truths must have a great deal of vi- 
tality to persist after so many years of cold recep- 
tion and scanty entertainment. But they have 
vitality, and they will always exist as long as the 
human family endures. The reason is simple. 
( I0 7 ) 



Our Common Road 



The family is the most indestructible organ- 
ization in the world. The true family is bound i 
together by ties nearer and dearer than any 
other ties on earth. 

Your family loves you, not because you are 
clever or beautiful or agreeable, but simply be- 
cause you are yourself, and its affection is the 
most disinterested affection there is. In spite 
of the unkind tartness of many home truths, 
they are, as a rule, largely prompted by love, 
and therefore they deserve more credence than 
they usually get. Have you never thought, 
when you heard an hysterical woman making 
herself conspicuous in some silly way, that, if 
she had listened to the unflattering criticism of 
some scoffing brother instead of to the flattery 
of other women as silly as she, she might have 
saved herself from being a spectacle that is both 
ridiculous and pathetic? 

The brother who derides his sister's foibles 
does not do it altogether from a love of teas- 
ing, but because it irritates him to see her mak- 
ing herself absurd. The mother who insists that 
her young son wash his hands and wipe his feet 
( 108 ) 



Our Com?non Road 



does not do so because she loves to nag, but 
because she wants him to grow up to be man- 
nerly instead of mannerless ; while the outsiders 
who encourage the girl in her frivolity and the 
boy in his rowdyism merely do it for their own 
amusement. 

Home truths are the real truths. Do not 
despise them because you can hear pleasanter 
things elsewhere. Do not think that your fam- 
ily do not understand you. They understand 
you well enough. And they not only under- 
stand, but they really care — and that is why 
the home truth is the most valuable truth you 
are likely to hear. 

<& I I ® 

FEELING SORRY FOR OTHER PEOPLE 

cc Would n't you think that the woman who 
passes out coupons in a subway entrance all day 
would be so sick of it that she would want to 
commit suicide ? " says one girl to another as 
they pass through the turnstile. 

" The person I always pity is the waitress in 
( I0 9 ) 



Our Common Road 



a restaurant/' replies the other. " Think of 
feeding people and feeding people and feeding 
people forever and ever and ever, in the clash 
of china and the smell of soup! Why, it nau- 
seates me just to think of it ! " 

There are few things we are more generous 
about than pitying people whose occupation 
would be distasteful to us. The thought of the 
woman who shampoos head after head day in 
and day out, and of the chorus girl who capers 
and giggles night after night, are both appalling 
to the housewife as her daily duties of cooking 
and cleaning and sewing would be to either of 
them. 

Have you ever wondered how that actress 
could play the same part over and over again ? 
Or how this shop girl can be obliging to the 
continual stream of shoppers who are " not 
quite sure just what they do want" ? 

Let us console ourselves with the reflection 
that there seems to be some law of adjustment 
that fits each one of us for the work we have 
to do. The spangled lady in pink tights who 
leaps through hoops at the circus regards the 
( »o) 



Our Common Road 



gaudy tawdriness of her surroundings with the 
same naturalness and matter-of-factness as the 
stenographer regards her typewriter or the 
busy mother regards the faces of her children. 
Some women would be horribly bored if they 
had to go to teas and dinner-parties all the 
time, and others would be horribly bored if 
they had to teach mathematics all the time. 
And yet both debutantes and school teachers 
seem passably contented with their respective 
lots. 

Another thing that may relieve the sensibil- 
ities of the abnormally sympathetic is to remem- 
ber that there is always much in the experience 
of others that we know nothing about. The 
girl who apparently passes her entire life shov- 
ing coupons across the marble slab in the sub- 
way turnstile has a complete existence outside 
the circle of that narrow cage. She may sing in 
her church choir; she may go to occasional 
dances ; she may sew on her clothes, entertain 
young men, belong to a club that meets weekly 
for candy-making and good time. Her work 
gives the backbone to life and is the most im- 

( »* ) 



Our Common Road 



portant feature of her day: but it is not the 
whole of life nor all of the day. 

We should never pity people who have work 
to do. The lot of an overworked seamstress 
may be more enviable than that of an idle so- 
ciety bud. Your shampoo girl and your telephone 
girl and your painted chorus girl are probably 
none of them bored with their occupations. 
They may be perfectly happy and probably are. 
It is a waste of emotion to feel sorry for people 
simply because they are doing things that would 
be dull or tedious or difficult for us. Do you 
have any one to feel sorry for you? Of course 
you don't. So work the rule backward. 

<& 12 S> 
SNOBBISHNESS 

Have you ever watched people wandering 
through an art gallery, admiring the various 
objects and commenting on the various artists 
— their lives, their genius, their achievements? 
And have you ever remembered that when 
those artists were alive, the very same class and 

( »* ) 



Our Common Road 



type of person which now reverences them 
probably scorned them, laughed at them, or at 
best ignored them ? And then have you ever 
thought that to-day there are artists with the 
same love and appreciation of beauty, the same 
desire to express that love, and that they, also, 
are scorned, laughed at, and ignored ? 

Most people only accept genius after it has 
been officially and formally accepted by the 
world ; they only recognize greatness after they 
have been told that it is greatness. They have 
no genuine response in their hearts or in their 
brains for what is noble and true ; they only have 
a veneer of cultivation and a desire to appear 
intelligent. 

The same attitude is assumed in all directions. 
The social snob sees no charm in any one who 
was not born into a certain " set." The intellec- 
tual snob sees nothing interesting in any one 
who has not an education similar to his own. 
The moral snob sees no goodness but the kind 
of goodness he professes. 

There is something indescribably contempti- 
ble in the attitude of the average person to- 
("3) 



Our Common Road 



ward genius which, maybe, is too uneven ever 
to be successful, toward beauty which is too ir- 
regular ever to be popular, toward goodness 
which is too simple ever to be conspicuous. 

Bound by convention, unable to form an in- 
dependent judgment, incapable of standing by 
that judgment if it were formed, thousands and 
thousands go to watch worthless plays, listen 
to cheap music, read poor literature, just because 
they have never learned to make any standards 
of their own or to respect their instinctive 
standards. 

The snob is one of the most ignoble of hu- 
man creatures ; he swims upon the tide of other 
men's convictions and reasons. The most ex- 
quisite beauty is a blank to him unless it has 
the stamp of respectable approval upon it. The 
most saintly life is meaningless to him unless it 
is conventionally effective. 

If you are not a snob, if you have real dis- 
cernment, you will recognize talent — potential, 
perhaps, but none the less real — in the most 
pitiful of apparent failures. You will see beauty 
where others see only ugliness. You will know 
( "4 ) 



Our Common Road 



that the meanest man has the possibility of be- 
ing a hero — although perhaps only for one su- 
preme moment — and the lowest woman a saint. 
But snobbishness is deep in the human heart. 
Two thousand years ago a prophet was not 
without honor save in his own country. And, 
regardless of the hidden treasures which lie 
everywhere around them, men and women still 
complain at the world's paucity and stretch out 
their empty hands to the gold at the end of the 
rainbow. 

THE POINT OF CONTACT 

Don't you know how you occasionally glance 
at a magazine article, and although the subject 
may be one which has never interested you be- 
fore, yet something in this particular treatment 
of it immediately catches and holds your atten- 
tion ? In the same way there are some people 
whom you always enjoy listening to, no matter 
what topic they discuss. Some teachers can take 
the dry bones of any subject and so clothe them 
( "5 ) 



Our Common Road 



in living flesh that you are spellbound by their 
magnetism. What is it that makes some matter 
readable, some people interesting, some argu- 
ments persuasive? What is this trick that first 
catches the other man's attention and finally 
wins his consent? It is no trick at all, but a 
well-recognized principle which all successful 
lawyers, ministers, writers, teachers, and con- 
versationalists have mastered to greater or less 
extent, either consciously or not. Pedagogists 
call it the point of contact, and it is the first 
step in the art or the science of persuasion. 

If you want to get a man over to your way 
of thinking, the first thing to do is to establish 
a point of contact. Get his point of view for a 
few minutes; go with him in his line of thought 
for a while, and then, when he is in a comply- 
ing and acquiescent mood, gently lead him into 
the path which you choose. 

A mother wants to make her little boy stop 
using slang. She can say for years, "Tommy, 
I do wi^h you would stop using slang," and it 
will have as much effect as whistling to the 
wind. By using sufficient emphasis she can 
( "6 ) 



Our Common Road 



make Tommy stop using slang in her immedi- 
ate presence, just as she can shut the wind out 
of her immediate room ; but she cannot be any 
more sure that he is not using slang when he is 
out of earshot than she can be sure that the 
wind has stopped blowing. If she really wants 
to get at the heart of the matter and to uproot 
the habit permanently, she must go at it in an 
entirely different way. She must try and under- 
stand just why Tommy uses slang. Does he 
think it is smart, or does he do it to be like the 
other boys? Is it a habit or is it perverseness ? 
She must first get in line with Tommy's angle 
of view, and then argue from that. And unless 
this point of contact is established, all argument 
is utterly futile, for Tommy will not listen, and 
will not be persuaded. 

We all want to make our appeal to various 
people for various purposes at some time or 
other. If you are a teacher, you must get the 
children's interest before you can begin to teach ; 
if you are in business, you must get your asso- 
ciates' attention before you can commence ne- 
gotiations. The parent who simply commands 
( "7 ) 



Our Common Road 



without taking the trouble to persuade loses 
power over his children just as soon as they are 
old enough to throw off that command. 

To win a woman to your side, you must first 
put yourself in her place, and then gradually 
work back with her to your place. If you do 
not do this, all your eloquence and rhetoric and 
erudition go for naught, and you can hammer 
at her head for a year with no more effect than 
if it were a head of cast-iron. Get the other 
person's angle of perception, establish your 
point of contact, and with this as a starting- 
place, you stand a good chance of carrying your 
opponent over into whatever camp you choose. 

<8- 14 £> 
DR. BROWN 

Dentistry is hardly a subject which recalls 
to our minds pleasurable sensations of any kind. 
We anticipate a visit to the dentist's with shud- 
dering unwillingness. We pass through it with 
anguish, and we remember it with lively bitter- 
ness. There is probably no process tolerated by 
( "8 ) 



Our Common Road 



civilization which is so fraught with deliberate 
pain as having a tooth filled or a nerve treated 
or any other of those dear familiar operations. 
Therefore, when a dentist succeeds in beguiling 
his patient into a fairly unrebellious state, we may 
admit that he has done wonders. 

There is a certain dentist who has done this 
very thing, and his secret is one which would 
open the doors of success to many other than the 
dental regions. You must first understand that 
this dentist — we will call him Dr. Brown — 
does excellent actual work. There is no mild 
placing of a filling upon a tooth and then po- 
litely informing one that all is well. He goes 
through every grewsome step down to its minu- 
test and most harrowing detail with thorough- 
ness and precision. He is, in short, an excellent 
dentist. But the reason that his doors are crowded 
is not merely because of the superfine quality 
of his technique, but because of his personality, 
and through this he has accomplished the mir- 
acle of almost painless dentistry. 

What is personality? What more than one's 
point of view working out through the medium 
- ("9) 



Our Common Road 



of manner, voice, and gesture ? Dr. Brown, in 
spite of the fact that he sees a dozen or so 
wretched victims daily, still remembers that each 
one is an individual capable of just as intense 
suffering as if he were the only person alive. 
He still remembers to say, "Ah, I am sorry," 
in a tone of deep solicitude at each twist of dis- 
comfort. He still remembers to give warning 
of any sudden impending calamity like a sharp, 
shooting pain or a new and hideous sound. In 
brief, he treats each patient with a gentleness 
and care that spreads an almost cozy atmosphere 
over the whole performance. You feel as if 
some one who really cared for your slightest 
twinge were close beside you, comforting you ; 
— not as if you had been flung out to writhe in 
misery in blank loneliness. 

And your mental attitude becomes so much 
less rebellious and so much more grateful, that 
unconsciously your muscles relax and you find 
yourself enduring the ordeal with approximate 
equanimity. 

It is simply that Dr. Brown takes your point 
of view instead of insisting upon his own. The 
( I2 ° ) 



Our Common Road 



usual attitude of the average dentist suggests: 
" Come, come, it must be gone through. Of 
course, I don't want to hurt you any more than 
I have to, but you '11 probably survive as others 
have survived before you." But Dr. Brown is 
not like this. Each time an aching void in the 
guise of a grudgingly opened mouth is revealed 
to him, he instantly catches the struggles of the 
patient's mind, and as instantly makes them his 
own, working with them instead of against 
them. 

Sympathetic his patients call it ; a good busi- 
ness asset the cynical might remark. But, at all 
events, it works, and works beautifully, and Dr. 
Brown is a successful man. 

The other fellow's point of view — there is 
nothing like it for making one popular socially 
or financially. How does the other fellow feel? 
What does the other fellow want ? What is it 
that the other fellow considers important, de- 
sirable, worth paying for ? Figure it out ; make 
it your own, too ; surely this is one of the secrets 
of success. 



( "i ) 



Our Common Road 



<& 15 e> 

THE AMERICAN IDEA 

He was only eight years old, and his mother 
was ill. He was commissioned to carry her up 
a bowl of broth, which he did with great care 
and precision. She thanked him, and then said 
rather wistfully, looking around the empty room: 
"Won't you stay with me half an hour, dear? 
There may be some errands you can do for me. " 
He gave her a searching glance as if to deter- 
mine whether she really needed his services or 
merely desired his company, and then answered 
firmly: cc Mother, I am very busy to-day. I 
can't possibly spare you fifteen minutes." Prob- 
ably the mother's laugh as she surveyed his 
small important face and serious, diminutive fig- 
ure did her more good than all her medicine, 
but the fact remains that he was only eight, and 
the Great American Idea of being busy had 
already lodged itself securely in his mind. 

We, too, laugh at the little boy ; but what are we 
but children of larger growth ? How many actions, 
graceful or comforting, how many pleasantries 
( * 22 ) 



Our Common Road 



we omit and curtail because we " are very busy, 
and can't possibly spare fifteen minutes ! " The 
always busy person can never spare the time to 
do anything. She is perpetually hurried, and per- 
petually hurrying. She reminds us of a squirrel in 
a cage — around and around and around again, 
and what is accomplished when all is done? 

Work is the great salvation, but being busy 
does not necessarily mean work accomplished. 
The people who give the most maddening and 
persistent impression of bustle are not those 
who turn out the greatest amount of actual 
achievement. 

Driving one's self and others is due, not to 
pressure of work that must be done, but to a 
state of mind. 

The little boy of eight who did not see how 
he could possibly spare fifteen minutes for his 
mother is no more absurd than plenty of his 
older prototypes. 

Dawdling is a sin, but scrambling through life 

with not a moment to lose is no virtue. The 

only compensation in the situation is that the 

woman who hurries so earnestly all the time will 

( **3 ) 



Our Common Road 



soon have no other distractions, for nobody will 
care whether she stops or not. 

How laughable — how ridiculous is the pic- 
ture of the little boy remarking with all the im- 
portance of a bank president: "I can't possibly 
spare you fifteen minutes." But what about 
ourselves? Is our occupation of such vital con- 
sideration that the world will crack if we pause 
for a brief breathing spell ? Are we laughable, 
too, sometimes, when with worried brows and 
serious voice we insist regretfully : " So sorry — 
but I can't possibly do it. You see, I could n't 
spare even fifteen minutes"? 

<# l6 S> 
SHOP-WINDOWS 

There are few sights more fascinating than 
a beautifully and skillfully arranged shop-win- 
dow. Window-dressing has become an art and 
a science within the last decade, with books 
written about it, and lectures delivered to sales- 
people concerning it; with results from which 
we all derive much pleasure. 
( "4) 



Our Common Road 



And one of the principles applied to shop- 
windows might very aptly be applied to many 
a young girl, who, like the shopkeeper, wishes 
to display her wares and to lure in the possible 
shopper. It would, obviously, be extremely 
short-sighted for a shopkeeper to dress up his 
windows with every fine and attractive article 
he had, and to leave his shelves and counters 
bare. For even if the would-be customer did 
step in, he would soon find out his mistake 
and step out again, and that would be the end 
of the story. 

And that is the end of the story for many a 
woman who has learned the trick of displaying 
her most attractive qualities at the first roll-up 
of the curtain, and has quite forgotten to keep 
herself well stocked in a good line of substantial 
goods. 

Who does not know the girl who has a smat- 
tering of information along almost every line ? 
She can make a good showing even with the 
truly educated for a short time, and she can 
dazzle the uneducated for a longer time. But 
sooner or later they all find her out. They step 

( i*5 ) 



Our Common Road 



inside and see that the window display is not an 
excellent and representative line of samples, 
but is the entire stock. And then they shrug 
their shoulders and say, " Humph, another 
fraud ! " and are done with those goods forever. 

Girls who are sweet-voiced and obliging in 
company, and shrews and viragos at home ; who 
are so neat and frilly on the street, and so un- 
tidy and slatternly when no one is there to see 
— they do a good deal of harm in a superficial 
way, for they cast a slur upon the genuine arti- 
cle, just as a fake shop casts discredit, tempo- 
rarily, upon all the shops in the district. But 
that is not the worst of it — the worst of it is 
the stupidity and short-sightedness of such a 
policy. The more attractive you are, the greater 
mistake you make if you fail in substantial 
qualities. The best advertising in the long run 
is the advertising that tells the truth — tells it 
in as striking and tempting a manner as you 
wish, but really tells it: in other words, adver- 
tising something that is worth buying. 

Being a fraud is the least profitable profession 
in the world. Putting all one's goods into the 

( »6 ) 



Our Common Road 



shop-window is a business that does not pay. 
You may get your purchasers in — you may 
even relieve them of a few ducats ; but you can- 
not keep them and you cannot make them come 
again. Window-dressing may be an art even 
when it cannot fulfill its promises, but it is 
never a science until it represents a truth. And 
fascinations are a poor advertisement when they 
do not stand for those happy livable qualities 
that make life sweeter instead of merely more 
glittering. 

# 17 s> 

HEROES AND COMEDIANS OF LIFE 

Some people always look happy, always greet 
us with a smile, always radiate good -will. It 
may be their disposition, or it may be a princi- 
ple with them, or it may even be due to their 
facial contour and features. But whatever it is, 
merely looking at them in a street-car is enough 
to transform a gloomy morning into one of com- 
parative cheerfulness. These individuals might 
be called the Comedians of Life, and to them, 
( J 27 ) 



Our Common Road 



as to all comedians, popularity flows easily. 
They assume nothing, ask for nothing; we need 
not talk to them nor listen to them, but when 
they are present we cannot help responding to 
their geniality any more than a drooping flower 
can help responding to the sunlight. 

We all are apt to underestimate the effect 
which we have upon others ; we underestimate 
the force of our character and the receptivity 
of theirs. And yet no one of us can move 
among our fellows without making them sway, 
either toward us or away from us, just as the 
slightest breeze parts and waves the tallest of 
grasses. 

This unconscious influence which we exert so 
constantly is based partly upon our superficial 
characteristics, partly upon our achievements, 
but principally upon our innate natures. Nobil- 
ity of motive, simplicity of thought, directness 
of action, and distinction of character — these 
are what enter into our personalities and make 
them what they are. 

Which of us can ever forget the vivid sensa- 
tion which flashed through us upon seeing or 

( 128) 



Our Common Road 



meeting a man or woman about whom our im- 
aginations had woven the purple mantle of 
romance and wonder ? Some great writer, some 
brilliant actor, some celebrated artist whose per- 
sonality seemed to our reeling senses a reflec- 
tion of a divine power ? And standing agape, 
staring impolitely at this marvelous person with 
a thousand thoughts crowding into our brains, 
a thousand agitations and aspirations shaking 
our hearts, we have gone through an experience 
which left its mark forever upon our memories, 
our hopes, and our ideals. 

We cannot all be geniuses to inspire such 
emotions in those we meet, but whatever we 
are it is concentrated and intensified by our in- 
dividuality, just as the diffuse beams of the sun 
are concentrated by some powerful lens. 

Just as we cannot make our bodies invisible 
by any magical garment, so we cannot conceal 
our natures by any trick of personality. What 
we are shines purely forth, as a light or a lure 
or a warning to every one who passes by. And, 
as the audience in the theater recognizes at once 
the clown, the villain, and the ingenue, so, sur- 
( I2 9 ) 



Our Common Road 



veying the larger stage, the spectators applaud 
or smile as they meet the heroes and the come- 
dians of life. 

<& 18 e> 

KEEPING A FRIEND 

We cannot lose a friend whom we truly love, 
for that love itself is what makes the friendship. 
When you hear a woman say sorrowfully that 
her perfect friendship has been broken, her 
words reveal that it never was a complete rela- 
tionship. Her friend gave her affection, com- 
panionship, understanding, or whatever it was, 
and now that she has ceased to give it every- 
thing seems gone. But if the recipient had given 
affection, companionship, and understanding of 
such noble and endearing qualities that nothing 
could quench them, and if she still continues 
to give them, she is still loving, and she still 
has the best part of friendship. For what makes 
a friendship is what we put into it, not what 
we get out of it. The mother loves her child 
no matter how erring it may be: and from her 
( *3<> ) 



Our Common Road 



mother love comes her great happiness. The 
child who merely accepts the devotion knows 
nothing of such joy. 

And so it is with friends. The way to have 
a friend is to be one — the way to keep your 
friend is to continue to care for her no matter 
what she does or what she is. 

The people who are lonely in this world are 
those who are always looking for something to 
come to them ; they hope for pleasant adven- 
tures; they exact much from their friends and 
from their family — and they are never satisfied. 
But the happy men and women are those who 
never think to demand for themselves — who 
give and give and give again, and find joy when- 
ever they find opportunity to give joy. 

The unhappiest wife is not the wife whose 
husband has ceased to love her ; it is the one 
who has ceased to love her husband. The discon- 
tented child is not the one for whom nothing is 
done by others, but who does nothing for others. 

The human heart is so constituted that it is 
only filled by the richness which flows from it 
— not by the richness which flows into it. 

( 131 ) 



Our Common Road 



Does your friend neglect you ? Has her ap- 
parent enjoyment in your society cooled by im- 
perceptible degrees ? For every shade of cool- 
ness offer more of your warm affection — and 
you will find no longer discontent, but an ever- 
increasing satisfaction. Trying to warm our 
hearts by the affection which others bring us is 
like trying to warm a house by placing heated 
bricks against the outer walls ; the house must 
be warmed from within ; it must radiate heat, 
not absorb it. 

If you would have a friend, be one; if you 
would keep a friend, continue to love; for just so 
long as you do, you hold the choicest part of 
happiness. 

<& 19 * 

THE MEDDLESOME WOMAN 

The scientist pins an insect to a card and then 
focuses his powerful microscope upon it and 
studies it, carefully, minutely, dispassionately. 
In somewhat the same manner it would be in- 
teresting to study the meddlesome woman — 
( *3 2 ) 



Our Common Road 



to dissect her and find out what makes her act 
so. There will be no difficulty in finding speci- 
mens ! Even the poorest of us can procure a 
few choice ones, either in our immediate circle 
or in the community at large. 

The purely meddlesome woman is not nec- 
essarily malicious; she may not even be officious 
or disagreeable. The desire to interfere does not 
imply any other desire ; it is a special hunger, 
a unique craving. The woman who is consumed 
by the thirst to meddle is like a crazy man who 
wants to tickle every one he sees. 

How well we know her! She may be a maid 
in our kitchen, or a neighbor, or a member of 
the family, but whoever she is, and whatever 
her station, she is always itching to be " in " 
things, to be consulted, to receive confidences, 
to advise, to warn, to console. She goes into a 
home where every one is happy, and although 
she may be fond of each member of the family 
and glad that they are so harmonious, yet the 
very sight of them sets her on edge and whets 
her appetite. She tingles to drop a suggestion 
here or a hint there that will make them all at 
( x 33 ) 



Our Common Road 



sixes and sevens. She warns the mother to look 
out for her daughter ; she rouses a dozen vague 
fears in the father's breast. She simply cannot 
rest until she gets her finger in the family pie. 

In the office it is the same story. She sows 
secret seeds of alarm, of suspicion, of dissatis- 
faction — not because she really wants to make 
people unhappy, but because she hankers 
quenchlessly to be "in" everything. 

Nearly all of us except the phlegmatically 
stolid have felt this tantalizing appetite at times 
— this mischievous yearning to make trouble. 
But we have denied it, and therefore we can 
keep it within bounds. But the meddlesome 
woman has not denied it ; she has yielded to it, 
and now it consumes her like fire. 

We need not condemn her; that will do no 
good. We need not punish her ; she suffers 
more than we. We can avoid her; we can be 
careful to give her no handle against us — no 
information which she may twist to our harm, 
no loophole through which she may creep. 
But, for the rest, we must pity her, as the vic- 
tim of any craving is to be pitied. 
( 134 ) 



Our Common Road 



If you feel this insidious thing growing within 
you, stamp it out. Refuse to gossip, to fish for 
scandal, to listen to dissensions. Go your own 
way and let other people go theirs. Take your- 
self in hand as sternly as if you were battling 
for life, or, before you realize it, you will find 
yourself devoured by an insatiable appetite that 
" grows by what it feeds on," and which will 
turn at last to feed upon yourself. 

<% 20 s> 

THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING ELSE 

One very merciful arrangement in the regula- 
tion of this universe — an arrangement which 
takes us many years to appreciate — is that there 
is always something else. 

When we are young — young in years or 
young in experience — we declare, passionately, 
hotly, vehemently, that we want what we want 
when we want it ; there is nothing — no, ab- 
solutely nothing — that can take its place. But 
as we grow wiser we find that there is always 
something — not so good, not the same, per- 

( ^35 ) 



Our Common Road 



haps — but, still, something. You cannot have 
the hat you want, but you can have some sort 
of a head covering, and, after all, it is not of su- 
preme importance. Your dinner does not please 
you ; pork does not agree with you, and you do 
not like onions — well, there is always some- 
thing else, if it is only bread and butter. 

Perhaps you have a friend with whom you 
are most happily congenial ; your friendship 
means much to you ; you cannot imagine how 
you would endure life without it. And then 
something happens, the friendship is broken, 
and you survey the ruins and think, " Every- 
thing is gone ; there is nothing left in my life." 
But after a time — it may seem an eternity — 
you find that other flowers are growing in the 
garden you thought laid waste forever, and that 
your life is not empty after all. 

We cannot appreciate the consolation of this 
provision when we are on the heights or in the 
depths of an experience. We insist that we can 
never be happy again. But slowly, gradually, 
old wounds heal, old scars fade, and the bril- 
liancy of the sunset is followed by the calmness 

( 136) 



Our Common Road 



of the night. It is not the same thing that once 
was, to be sure, but it is something that has 
come to you. There are no vacuums in nature 
nor in human hearts. 

We are so sure that we know what we want, 
and we rebel bitterly when we cannot get it, 
or have to relinquish it. We want it so much 
that we think there is nothing else in all the 
world. But there is. Other birds come back to 
sing in our wind-blown trees ; other children 
come trooping to the deserted house ; other fires 
are lit upon the empty hearths ; and fresh rivu- 
lets trickle down parched channels. 

And we realize that we need not have suf- 
fered so terribly long ago if we had only believed 
then what we know now — that no matter what 
happens, there is always something else. 

<& 21 S> 
THE DISAPPROVING ATTITUDE 

If you want to do the most disagreeable 
thing in the world cultivate an atmosphere of 
disapproval. This atmosphere is warranted to 
( J37 ) 



Our Common Road 



kill good cheer, paralyze spontaneous endeavor, 
and throw all but the incurably optimistic into 
profoundest gloom. 

People who enfold themselves in the disap- 
proving attitude sometimes claim to be uncon- 
scious of it, and this is irritating, for every one 
else is so painfully conscious of it that it seems 
an unjust chance that the perpetrator alone 
should be spared. 

The attitude of disapproval is usually made 
manifest by a cold eye, a mouth drawn down at 
the corners, and a demeanor of congealed un- 
responsiveness. The possessors select for their 
habitat the bosom of some good-natured family 
— usually their own — or a respectable board- 
ing-house, for they would be suffered nowhere 
else. Their specialty is not in condemning any 
person nor any action in frank speech, but in 
casting around them a glance of chilly depre- 
cation that stops all cheerful conversation as 
effectually as a cork stops the flow of a bottle. 

Disapproving people are, as a rule, absolutely 
convinced that they are right and that you are 
wrong, and nothing could induce them to change 

( 138 ) 



Our Common Road 



their minds on this score. They are prone, also, 
to consider themselves more refined than other 
members of their family, or more pious, or 
whatever their desideratum may be. They do 
not reprove your words, but they decline to 
sanction them ; they do not censure your actions, 
but they disallow them ; they say nothing, but 
they look volumes. 

There are two kinds of disapproving persons; 
one is this way because it is her nature, her 
natural manner, and a habit hard to break. The 
other assumes the attitude because she considers 
it salutary. The first type is unfortunate; the 
second mistaken. Any one who thinks that one 
can cure, or change, or rectify, or improve an- 
other by an attitude of mute reproval is on an 
entirely wrong track. 

If you have a friend who is pursuing a course 
which you consider detrimental, you have sev- 
eral methods open to you. One is to go to her 
honestly and tell what you think and then say 
no more about it. Another is to ignore the cir- 
cumstance entirely. And another is to go and 
have a good old-fashioned row and "make up" 
( *39 ) 



Our Common Road 



or refuse to "makeup" according to your ideas 
on the subject. But to wrap one's self in a 
chill and forbidding mantle of silent reproach- 
fulness is enough to kill any affection in the 
world. 

If you are one of those mute, disapproving 
ones, here is something to remember : in the 
first place, nobody has the slightest idea what 
you are disapproving of ; and in the second, you 
are helping no one, enlightening no one, dis- 
ciplining no one; you are forcing them to take 
their pleasure elsewhere, to confide their griefs 
and to share their pleasures with some one else. 
That is all. 

A disagreement is sometimes necessary ; a 
sharp conflict may be stimulating; the truth 
must sometimes be delivered with emphasis ; 
but there is never any need for that most hate- 
ful and unhelpful of all weapons — the disap- 
proving attitude. 



( Ho ) 



Our Common Road 



<8 22 +3> 
THE ALARMIST 

The alarmist is one of society's most active 
and busy caterers. She furnishes "sugar and 
spice and everything nice" for large social gath- 
erings, as well as for cozy tete-a-tetes. Her 
supply never runs out ; is always fresh, and 
guaranteed to give a thrill or a shudder to each 
recipient. 

The alarmist tells you that " the poor, dear 
Jameses are on the very verge of bankruptcy ; 
that Mrs. William Jenks looks badly — very 
badly ; and although we hate to admit it, it does 
seem like a decline. And would n't we think 
that Mrs. Bings would be worried to death 
about her son Billy ? The child wriggles so ; he 
surely has something frightful the matter with 
his nerves — St. Vitus's dance probably. And 
as for Marcia Dingleberry, she will never, never 
in all this world get through college. She is a 
sweet girl, but she is n't quite bright." 

When the alarmist gets through with her 
resume of the living and the soon-to-be-dead, 

( hi ) 



Our Common Road 



the more susceptible of her* listeners are in the 
cold shakes. 

The alarmist differs from the gossip, in that 
the gossip talks about any one and any thing, 
and is inclined to malice, but the solicitude of 
the alarmist is only aroused in the case of those 
precarious and uncertain individuals who seem 
about to topple over the precipice to ruin. 

An up-to-date alarmist, in good working 
order, can think up more distressing probabili- 
ties for her friends and acquaintances than can 
the most ingenious manager of the chamber of 
horrors. She is very fond of introducing the 
modern theory that every one is partially insane^ 
and of making startling personal application of 
it. Insidious and incurable diseases are also 
specialties with her, while impending financial 
and matrimonial disaster are steady wares. 

Life would have a tendency to become mo- 
notonous without the ministration of the alarm- 
ists. We would miss the exhilaration of the 
double shock of first hearing and then recover- 
ing from the information that we were on the 
verge of a nervous collapse, that our brother 

( H2 ) 



Our Common Road 



was going to elope with the candy-counter girl, 
and that our house was a perfect firetrap. All 
these exciting possibilities would be lost to us 
if it were not for the loud shriek of agitators. 

Alarmists are never, on any occasion, to be 
taken seriously, but occasionally it is rather 
diverting to let one of them open her pack like 
an insistent Eastern peddler, and see what va- 
riety and fantastic array of goods she can set be- 
fore us in the twinkling of an eye. And after 
we have smiled our "None to-day/' and she 
has regretfully withdrawn her lurid temptations, 
we turn back to the sober room of daily living, 
a little relieved to find it still rather dull, and 
shabby, perhaps, but full of grateful stability 
and rest. 

<s 23 s> 

BROKEN PROMISES 

Only one who has accepted a promise and 
allowed faith to grow up about it, and then felt 
it break in time of stress, appreciates that sway- 
ing time of bewilderment and loss. The one 

( H3) 



Our Common Road 



who breaks the promise does not feel the same 
shock, for her emotions are divided. The rea- 
son why she broke the promise was stronger 
than the reason why she made it, and her pre- 
liminary conflict has rendered the final crash 
less unexpected. Circumstances being what they 
are, and human nature being what it is, it was 
impossible for her to have acted any differently, 
she argues, and now she is ready for a fresh try. 
But the one toward whom the obligation has 
failed is not ready so quickly. If a friend says 
to you, " I will not tell," and then she does tell, 
it is impossible for you to believe her again im- 
mediately. You may love her just as much, you 
may want to trust her, but it is a psychological 
impossibility. She has not only torn up the 
flower which you planted together, but she has 
laid waste the soil. Before the flower of faith 
can bloom again, new ground must be found, 
new seed be sowed, and then the time abided 
for new flowers to grow. When the fortress of 
assurance has been leveled, one does not only 
have to begin at the beginning again, but one 
must carry away the old debris, fill up the old 
( *44 ) 



Our Common Road 



foundations, and go through the toil of clearing 
away the old ruin before even beginning on the 
new. 

If we realized how significant our promises 
were, we should probably make fewer and keep 
them better than we do. When once we give 
a pledge, we have given something of ourselves, 
and its acceptance implies the same generosity 
as opening the doors of a home to strangers. 
The stranger who betrays his hospitality not only 
closes the doors of entertainment to himself, 
but injures all who come after. 

The golden cord of our warranty which we 
extend to our friends is the most sacred thing 
we can proffer them, and if we snap it when 
other demands press, it is profaned for all time. 
When next we would offer it, it is tarnished 
and torn, and not even the most careless will 
put credence in it. 

The promise-breaker must begin all over 
every time. He must reestablish his credit 
whenever he wishes to use it. There is no con- 
tinuing city for him ; he is always at the begin- 
ning. Not because we do not wish to believe 
( 145 ) 



Our Common Road 



him, but because human instinct refuses to 
trust to a bridge that has once proved rotten. 

The man whose word is gold has won half 
the battle of life. He has the confidence of his 
fellows, and that is one of the secrets of success. 
But the loose-mouthed are continually toiling 
upstream and against the wind. Even when we 
want to have confidence in them we cannot, 
and it is only when they have built a dozen 
bridges stronger than the one which gave way 
that we dare to venture forth again, and trust 
our weight to them. 

<# 24 ■&> 

THE IMPULSIVE WOMAN 

An impulsive, open-hearted woman of forty 
was once asked what trait in her own character 
she would still hold to if she were to live her 
life over again, to which she promptly replied, 
" My impulsiveness." The warm, quick impulse 
that makes the hand go out in sympathy, that 
pulls the dollars out of our pockets, that pricks 
our hearts into instant recognition of a need, is 
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Our Common Road 



something that cannot be bought or hired, but 
must be born in one, either by nature or by ad- 
miration. Life would be a very prosaic affair 
without these flashes of blue across the skies of 
every day, and if we waited until all our deeds 
of impulse were catalogued, listed, and defined 
before they were expressed, they would prob- 
ably never see the light. 

But the impulsive woman sometimes is rather 
unsatisfactory. When she feels like sending 
flowers, she sends them, but when you may feel 
like having flowers sent, she may never think of 
it. When your impulse coincides with some one 
else's impulse, all goes well, but when it conflicts 
with some one else's impulse, things go awry. 

The systematic person who trusts to a maxim 
rather than to an emotion may not be an inspi- 
ration, but she is a comfort. She brings order out 
of chaos and peace out of turmoil. In the office, 
at home, in society, everywhere, she is loved, 
respected, and relied upon. Her actions are 
based, not upon the volatile cc feeling so," but 
upon the foundation of genuine consideration 
for others. 

( 147 ) 



Our Common Road 



This cautious, deliberate type of woman, who 
seems to do what her head tells her is sensible 
rather than what her heart tells her is lovable, 
may be irritating at times, but in the end she is 
a blessing. Her smile does not depend upon the 
weather, nor her good humor upon her diges- 
tion. Her spirits may not be brilliant, but they 
are very comforting. Her face may not sparkle 
with animation, but on the whole it is a pleas- 
ant expression that creeps about eyes that are 
always kindly, and about a mouth that never 
says the bitter thing. 

The impulsive woman has this advantage 
over the opposite type ; she is generally more 
attractive, superficially. All the world loves a 
warm greeting and a cordial manner, and a wo- 
man of moods is usually more fascinating in a 
certain way than a cool, staid one. 

And since the impulsive woman has this ad- 
vantage, why does she not go and win the race 
more often than she does, instead of seeing, as 
is frequently the case, the prize of social popu- 
larity and genuine affection fall to the quiet, 
methodical girl ? 

( 148 ) 



Our Common Road 



Is it not often because the girl who is blessed 
with a warm, quick nature does not use that na- 
ture, but lets it use her? What a pity she does 
not learn, from the woman who is only half as 
entertaining, that what the world wants is people 
who are thoughtful as well as people who are 
gay, and people who really care for the pleas- 
ure of others and not only for the response they 
get for themselves. 

Let your impulsiveness have full play, but 
when it lapses, — as impulsiveness is bound to 
do, — be sure you have a good store of old- 
fashioned and substantial virtues to fall back 
upon, for " after a woman's charm has won the 
battle, her character is the advancing standard." 

<a 25 & 

UNIQUE EXPERIENCES 

Most of us enjoy believing, when any rather 
unusual experience comes to us, that no one in 
the whole world was ever quite so happy, or 
quite so miserable, or quite so perplexed as we 
are. There were never a pair of lovers in the 
( H9 ) 



Our Common Road 



world who did not believe that they loved each 
other in a way that was peculiar, beautiful, unique. 
There never was a chronic invalid who did not 
secretly pride herself on being more frequently 
at death's door than any one else, and a little 
nearer that portal than is the common privilege. 
Every business woman is busier than any other ; 
every mother has more household duties than 
you ever heard of before — and so on through 
an endless category of occupations, experiences 
and joys and sorrows. 

There seems no reason why we should not 
extract whatever melancholy pleasure we may 
from the conviction that we are tremendously 
sensitive or terribly misunderstood, but it surely 
is the acme of egotism to refuse to acknowledge 
the idiosyncrasies of other people as well. 

There is a certain type of girl who is always 
having mysterious " affairs. " You never get a 
very definite idea as to what these " affairs " are, 
but she firmly impresses upon you that they are 
different from the " affairs " of most girls ; that 
your " affairs " are probably poor commonplace 
things like everybody's, but that hers — well, 
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Our Common Road 



you couldn't understand what she was talking 
about even if she should try to explain. 

And yet, after all, this is quite an old world, 
and in all likelihood the entire gamut of human 
events and emotions has been run several times. 
The experience which has come to you — it may 
be one of shame, or hope, or sudden understand- 
ing, or swift calamity — came to Eve, probably, 
and has come to many of her daughters since. 
Why, that stupid-looking woman in the apart- 
ment below may be passing through the self-same 
waters of affliction that are overwhelming you. 

Your heart is as cold as stone because the fire 
that warmed it has flickered and gone out. You 
are chilled with grief, and it does not make it 
less poignant to be told that joy has fled from 
many women. All you realize is that it has fled 
from you and that you are suffering. Your own 
experience is real, and there is nothing to be 
gained from undervaluing it. But there is much 
to be gained by valuing that of other people as 
well, and when their joys depart from them to 
give them the tribute of believing in the utter- 
ness of their sorrow. 

( i5i ) 



Our Common Road 



You are happy ; you have found some secret 
key that unlocks many treasures. You must not 
think it is nothing because others have found 
that key before. Only when, later, you will see 
some one else who is also happy, give her 
credit in your mind and in your heart for find- 
ing as true a key and unlocking as real treasures 
as those of yours. 



"To Gray Hills and Green 
* i & 

DOING NOTHING 

The beautiful long twilight season has stolen 
upon us almost unaware, and the freshness of 
the spring morning, and the loveliness of the 
late afternoon. Even the most energetic of us 
have let the business of the day slip from our 
fingers now and then, and have gazed out on 
the greenness of the grass, and the unfolding 
verdure of the trees — half-thinking and half- 
dreaming, until we were suddenly recalled to 
practical life with a start. 

We have, perhaps, in those brief times which 
come between the things which must be done, 
stood for many minutes upon a quiet bridge and 
watched the water floating by, or loitered upon 
a hillside, in the fragrance and the music of the 
spring. Spring fever, with all its vague restless- 
ness, has slipped its hand into ours, and led us, 
in reality or in imagination, down leafy lanes, 
( *55 ) 



Our Common Road 



dappled in sunshine, or over pleasant pasture 
lands. And some of us have realized anew, or 
come to realize what we may not have felt before 
— the restfulness which envelops us when we 
allow ourselves to stop the continual pushing 
and pulling of conscious effort, and merely to 
listen and watch and receive. 

Most of the operations of life must be gone 
through with a clear intention and a resolute 
will. Ifwedonot make ourselves accomplish 
what we want, it will probably remain forever 
unaccomplished. So we work and plan and 
struggle, sometimes gaining a step and some- 
times losing one, always acutely aware of the 
fact that we are responsible for our actions and 
for our lives. And the gentle tendency to drift, 
to let things go idly by, which comes with every 
spring, is nature's perfect gift to us after our 
winter of effort and endeavor. 

You seem very important to yourself; you 
consider it absolutely necessary to get through 
with this task and to commence the next at a 
scheduled pace and time. Stand still and watch 
the sunset for a long half-hour, and realize how 

c 156) 



Our Common Road 



little your hurry and worry affects the great 
rhythm of the sun in its course. Watch the 
birds wheeling and wheeling in endless circles, 
remote from any regulations you may impose; 
feel the wind against your face — the wind that 
comes from you know not whence, and sweeps 
on you know not where. All of these — the 
elements, the seasons, the birds, the beasts, the 
flowers, perform their functions naturally, eas- 
ily, flawlessly, without any assistance from us. 
And as we watch them, we breathe a longer, 
freer sigh of relief. 

We have grown obsessed by the idea that we 
must direct and dictate so many laws, both for 
ourselves and others. And as we listen and stand 
still, we see that there are laws which do not 
need to be regulated, but only to be understood. 

We grow tired because we try to push the 
train of existence along, just as the nervous 
woman pushes her feet against the floor of the 
trolley to hurry it. She could sit back quietly 
and the car would get there just as quickly. 
And we, too, could rest assured that many of 
the things over which we are troubling would 

( 157) 



Our Common Road 



come to a natural solution if we would let them 
alone. 

It is not necessary always to be doing some- 
thing, and the times when we stand motionless 
and feel the new grass under our feet and the 
fragrance of the flowers in the air are, perhaps, 
the best times of all, because, for the moment, 
we stop being conscious of what we must do, 
and are only conscious of what we are, and of 
what is being done without our volition or en- 
deavor — in perfect order and in perfect har- 
mony. 

<£ 2 £> 
MEMORIES 

The summer returns and we go back to the 
old farmhouse, to the camp in the woods, to the 
seashore where the adored sailboat has anchored 
times immemorial, and a flood of associations 
sweeps over us, and although we stand with 
friends of to-day at our hand it is the friends of 
long ago whom we feel beside us. Places are 
strangely retentive of memories, and when we 

c 158 ) 



Our Common Road 



enter a room where we used to see a familiar 
figure, or gaze out upon the rolling meadow 
where a well-loved group of young people used 
to come trooping with laughter, then the remem- 
brances that have been half forgotten quickly 
leap into life, and for a moment we live in the 
past more poignantly than in the present. 

It is not because the past is more beautiful 
than the present that we think of it with such 
fondness ; it is merely because it is past ; be- 
cause we cannot alter it; because it has woven 
its thread of gray or gold into the fabric of our 
lives and become a part of us. We cannot shake 
off our memories ; nothing can destroy them. 
The bypath where the wild roses grew, and 
where the trees met over your head, may have 
been widened from a grass-grown lane into a 
macadamized street; but no matter what has 
been done to it, in your memory that funny 
little lane still wanders under the shade of the 
trees, and the wild roses still bloom there, and 
you and your girlhood friend may still stray 
there, hand in hand. 

Associations cling closely to places, as closely 
( *59 ) 



Our Common Road 



as the perfume clings to the flower. We cannot 
get rid of them ; they are always waiting for us, 
gay or grave, full of light or full of shadow. 

We cannot select our memories any more 
than we can select our lives. Some hateful sound 
heard years ago may ring in our ears until we 
are old, and some sight of terror or ugliness seen 
without our volition may recur to us unwillingly 
over and over again. We cannot stem the im- 
ages that pass and repass the mirror of our 
minds ; sad visions come hand in hand with 
merry ones ; the ones we would forget are tan- 
gled with the ones we cherish. But although we 
cannot choose them all, yet we can choose many 
of them, and we can see to it that no associa- 
tions of our friends are touched with depression 
or humiliation because of us. 

What you do to-day will be a memory a year 
from to-day. This summer will be one of many 
summers before long. You live with it now ; it 
lives with you always. Your camp, your ocean, 
your woods, may be a picture, a place of joy, a 
shrine for all time if you but make it so to- 
day. 

( 160) 



Our Common Road 



The children are building room after room, 
tower and turret, in what will soon be their 
temple of memory. Are you helping them to 
make it beautiful ? When you return with them, 
after many years, to where you are now passing 
long summer days, what thoughts will smile, or 
weep, or wince and hide their faces from behind 
the rocks and tree- trunks? 

Memories, memories, memories, that will 
make us glad or sorry or ashamed all the 
years of our life — and we are weaving them 
to-day. 

« 3 * 

ON GROWING UP AND GROWING OLD 

They were playing together, three little girls, 
cooking on a diminutive stove in a playhouse, 
where even the littlest one had to bend when 
she stood up. Their ages ranged from the ma- 
ture figures of twelve to fourteen. 

" Oh, dear," sighed the fourteen-year-old, re- 
flectively, as she dropped an egg in a pygmy 
pan to boil, "just think what a wonderful 
( 161 ) 



Our Common Road 



summer we are having, and next year we will be 
too old to be playing like this." 

" I know," agreed the next one, pausing in 
her engrossing pursuit of floor-scrubbing; "and 
pretty soon we won't come here for the sum- 
mer. Mother says I 've got to take a year 
abroad." 

The twelve-year-old, shaken by this dismal 
prognostication, added her plaint to the general 
mourning. "And in a few years the boys will 
only be able to get down for week-ends, and we 
can't go fishing and sailing all day as we do now. 
Or," a look of horror coming into her face, 
" some of us may be married, and then, of 
course, we won't have any fun," 

And the three of them stopped, trembling 
with agitation, to look into each other's grief- 
stricken faces. "Oh, won't it be horrible to be 
grown up!" they gasped, as the enormity of 
their impending sorrow loomed before them. 

" L-l-et 's ask my mother," quavered the lit- 
tlest one, completely unnerved and swallowing 
her fast-coming tears ; and so the three of them 
flew, in sickening fear, to the house. The 
( 162 ) 



Our Common Road 



mother smiled as they sobbed out their heart- 
rending question. " Would n't it be ever so 
much nicer if things could always stay the way 
they are now?" they queried in tremulous 
anxiety. 

"Wait and see," the mother answered gently; 
and something kind and amused in her eyes 
made them feel better, and they trooped back, 
comforted, to the cookstove and the playhouse. 

Ten years passed, and Time in its whirligig 
threw the three girls together again for an- 
other long summer. The cookstove had, indeed, 
fallen into rusty pieces; the playhouse was used 
for a utilitarian tool-cabinet ; and yet, strangely 
enough, there were still compensations left upon 
the earth. Some of the prophecies had come 
true ; not only one, but all of the little play- 
mates had had their year abroad. The boys, as 
had been so harrowingly predicted, were only 
able to get down for week-ends. And, horror 
of horrors, one of them was actually married. 

And yet, as they sat there, sipping their iced 
tea, in polite grown-upness, two of them sew- 
ing and the other reading aloud, they were not 

( i6 3 ) 



Our Common Road 



so doleful as might have been expected. If the 
truth had been told, not one of them would 
have gone back a single summer. Sweet as the 
days in the playhouse had been, there had been 
other days sweeter still. In the variegated pat- 
tern of life many new and strange colors had 
been woven. New realms had been discovered, 
peopled with new heroes and heroines. No, not 
one of the three would have gone back to a sin- 
gle day in the playhouse, with its sloping roof, 
where even the littlest had to bend when she 
stood up — not even back to the bliss of boil- 
ing a real egg in a pygmy pan, or to the ab- 
sorbing detail of floor-scrubbing. 

" Do you remember," said the one who had 
been the fourteen-year-old, " one day when we 
were little girls we stopped playing to lament 
that we must grow up and do the stupid things 
that grown-up people do ?" 

" I know/' said the other ; " and now we 
are doing them they don't seem so bad after 
all. If things could only stay the way they are 
now — " 

The third one chimed in : " It 's all right to 

( i6 4 ) 



Our Common Road 



grow up, but it 's horrible to think of growing 
old — " And then she stopped, half-remem- 
bering. 

" Let 's go and ask mother/' she suggested 
quizzically. 

And so they trooped into the house — all 
three of them ; and the mother smiled as she 
had smiled ten years ago when they had run to 
her, their faces wet with childish tears. " Wait 
and see," she said gently ; and something kind 
and amused in her eyes reminded them of the 
time when they were little girls and had been 
comforted. 

For, after all, lamenting the passing of the 
days is always childish, and needs only a word 
from wiser ones to have it dispelled in a smile. 

<& 4 .-e> 

THE SUNSET LIGHT 

One of the compensations of age is age itself. 
To the very young the very old seem faded and 
dull and quiet, incapable of giving or receiving 
keen enjoyment of any kind. But this is because 

( i6 5 ) 



Our Common Road 



youth sees only the most glaring and obvious 
light and shade in the picture of life. Only eyes 
strengthened by long use detect the many tints 
and shades that are so much more beautiful 
than the few raw primary colors. And one of 
the sources of delight which becomes more in- 
timate and more sweet every day, and which 
youth in its crudeness can never appreciate, is 
the joy of old, familiar things. This house, with 
its papers softened and dulled, its hangings mel- 
lowed, its furniture darkened and settled, is in- 
finitely more charming to the eyes that know it 
than any spick-and-span new dwelling. That 
face, with its myriad lines and with its pale tran- 
quillity, has a beauty that is indescribably more 
poignant to those who love it than is the fresh 
contour of girlhood. Whole realms of pleasure, 
whole fields of imagination and idealism, are 
open to those who are growing older, and who 
begin to enjoy, not only the beauty which is 
obvious, but that hidden loveliness which has 
meaning and suggestion for a few. 

"Will you love me when I am sixty as much 
as you do now?" the young girl asks her 
( 166) 



Our Co?nmon Road 



lover; and although he answers, " Sixty times 
more than I do now," neither of them realizes 
how much closer they will be, how much dearer 
to the other when they have the bonds of asso- 
ciation for sixty years to hold them. 

We think of all the world as going mad over 
novelty ; of considering the old as the obsolete. 
But in reality age adds to the value of more 
things than antique furniture, and it is surprising 
to see how the majority of people cling to what 
they are accustomed to and are fond of what 
they know. Many a shopper prefers the devious 
ways of the old store to the innovations and 
conveniences of the new, and the faithful reader 
of a magazine or a newspaper regularly turns 
to certain features, not because they are neces- 
sarily excellent, but because they have assumed 
the place of old acquaintances. 

So many of the fears and worries of young 
people would vanish if they could realize that 
the flight of youth does not mean the flight of 
happiness. Nature handles the law of compen- 
sation with even justice for those who do not 
offend her, and our added pleasure in familiar 

( i6 7 > 



Our Common Road 



sights and familiar faces and familiar experiences 
more than balances the inevitable loss of novelty. 
Change, restlessness, fresh sights and sounds 
— these are the spice of youth. But as their 
fascination grows less with the slipping years, 
the charm of sweet familiarity deepens, and we 
find ourselves drifting into a more serene happi- 
ness incomparable to the hasty scramble of ex- 
citement as is the quick flash of an electric bulb 
to the mellow light of sunset. 

* 5 * 

WHAT MAKES GOOD TASTE 

A saunterer in a reflective mood, passing 
by a group of houses in an exclusive residential 
part of town, noticed the soft rose-colored paper- 
shaded lights in the hallways ; the rich lace cur- 
tains carefully drawn; the potted trees on either 
side of the entrance ; and the whole atmosphere 
of refinement and luxury. And then, going on 
to the less fashionable section, passed other 
houses of cheaper construction and poorer sur- 
roundings. These, too, had potted trees in front, 

( 168 ) 



Our Common Road 



and the hallways aspired to the same color- 
scheme. But there was something lacking; the 
paper was not the same soft warm rose, but a 
dull red that absorbed all the light, making the 
entrances inexpressibly gloomy and cheerless. 
The lamps, with their globes of imitation stained 
glass, reflected a dismal glare, and the cheap 
lace curtains were unhomelike and hideous. In 
every point where the second-class apartment 
house had imitated the first-class house it had 
failed miserably, and stood — a pathetic illus- 
tration of an old mistake. 

Good taste consists largely in suitability. Be- 
cause you cannot spend as much money as your 
wealthy neighbor does not mean that you and 
your house must be ugly, while she and her 
house must be beautiful. It only means that 
you must adopt a style suitable to your station 
and finances, while she may adopt a style suit- 
able to hers. A room with a harmonious and 
quiet wall-paper, a few simple and well-propor- 
tioned pieces of furniture, a modest and tasteful 
lamp-shade, pictures whose money value is little 
and whose artistic value is much, is a room of 

( i6 9 ) 



Our Common Road 



refinement and charm. A room with a cheap 
wall-paper that apes an imitation tapestry one, 
with pretentious furniture whose original might 
adorn a palace, and ugly, showy pictures, is in 
bad taste. It is not a question of money, for the 
latter may have cost twice as much as the former : 
it is a question of sincerity. 

There is no reason why we should be ashamed 
to be in moderate circumstances, but there is 
every reason why we should be ashamed to pre- 
tend to be something we are not. A cottage 
that is good of its kind is as beautiful as a cha- 
teau that is good of its kind. 

The girl with a willow plume of paper, that 
cost fifty cents and looks at first glance as if it 
might have cost fifty dollars, is not so well 
dressed as the girl whose hat is trimmed with 
a goose-quill that cost fifty cents and looks it. 
The last girl may look poor, but the first one 
looks cheap as well as poor. Both girls have 
thin pocketbooks, but the first one has thin 
standards as well. 

There are many excellent imitations that are 
so pretty and so unpretentious that no one 
( 170 ) 



Our Common Road 



could object to them. The girl who works in 
an office does not need to swathe herself in an 
ugly, bungling, badly made flannel waist of drab 
color, when for the same money she can buy a 
smart, simple, well-cut garment that has style 
and attractiveness and sufficient warmth. But 
if she comes to the office in a lace waist that is 
a poor imitation of one that a debutante might 
don for the matinee — then she is unsuitably 
clothed. 

It is not money that makes the difference: it 
is the standard of suitability and the standard 
of sincerity in one's house, in one's clothing, 
and in all one's appointments that mark the 
gulf between good taste and bad, the real per- 
son and the shoddy one. 

<a 6 & 

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR ? 

You pass a woman on the street, and some 

one calls your attention to her, and you see that 

same woman a dozen times during the next 

week. You meet a man at dinner, and he tells 

( *7* ) 



Our Common Road 



you that he is interested in wool, and the next 
day you see news about wool in all the news- 
papers, you nearly get run over by a truck that 
is carrying wool, and as you walk down the 
same street that you walk down every day, you 
see six or eight signs of wool merchants that you 
never saw before in all your previous walking. 

We see, not what is there, but what we are 
looking for. We notice the things to which our 
attention has been called. We find what we seek. 
Some people are remarkably observant and 
others are incredibly unobservant, but the ma- 
jority of us are about so-so, seeing the things 
in which we are naturally interested, and having 
to be jogged a little to pay attention to others. 

Watch different people selecting what appeals 
to them, as unerringly as a bird flies to its own 
nest or an iron filing is drawn to its magnet. 
Take the theater, for example. The dressmaker 
sees the clothes, the child follows the story, an 
actor is engrossed with the acting, a sociologist 
observes the audience. One woman is interested 
in ideas, another in characterization, a third in 
the literary handling of the play. Or watch 
( J 72 ) 



Our Common Road 



various people seeking their own in the daily 
paper. 

What are you looking for? If you are not 
sure, put the question the other way. What do 
you see? In the city do you pass monotonous 
crowds of dull, grubby, tired, stupid people, or 
do you pass men and women who look worn, 
perhaps, but each one has a light in his or her 
face that gleams like a flame? It is aflame; it 
is the torch of indestructible personality. 

Do you like what you see in life ? If you do, 
you are happy. If you do not, then why not 
look for something else ? People annoy you 
because you see their annoying traits. They 
would amuse you or educate you or be com- 
panionable to you if you looked for those qual- 
ities in them. 

If you do not like things as you see them, 
why not try another point of view ? We see 
what we want to see, or what we have formed 
the habit of seeing. The scientist gathers every- 
where facts to substantiate his theory ; the 
minister finds a text in every conversation ; 
the pessimist is credited with supernaturally 

( 173 ) 



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clear vision in regard to the holes in doughnuts. 
What do you see ? What are you looking for? 

<& 7 •&> 

THE LOVE OF POSSESSION 

Spring is the time of year when any one 
who has car-fare out of the city, and will steal an 
hour from less important things, may enter into 
the kingdoms of earth and heaven. There is no 
recreation so satisfactory as sauntering over the 
country roads under the soft fresh sky. Auto- 
mobiling is a trifle swift for the lazy mood of 
spring, and even horseback riding is rather 
strenuous, but idling foran hour or so by brook 
and highway with a congenial friend or by one's 
self is the perfect pleasure. 

As we take our stroll through a world of ex- 
pectant beauty, — of delicate branches sketched 
against an opalescent sky, of stones full of pale 
and beautiful colors, of fuzzy green growing 
things, and the slim smooth bark of trees, — all 
creation seems shimmering with loveliness. 

Pushing up the hillside to get the view, we 

( m) 



Our Common Road 



notice a stone by the side of the path — a curi- 
ous dull green, like the queer scarab-like orna- 
ments of ancient Egypt. " It would polish up 
handsomely," says your companion, following 
your eye; but you turn a look of wonder upon 
her. You have no desire to take the stone away 
from its green-brown setting, to polish it, nor 
to keep it under glass in your curio cabinet. It 
is as much yours lying there upon the hillside 
as it would be upon your mantel. The desire 
for possession is not in keeping with the mood 
of spring. 

How wearisome to the idle saunterer is the 
mentally avaricious person who cannot even 
take a stroll without hunting for a bit of infor- 
mation, who classifies every tree and flower and 
names every bird with the persistence of a child 
reciting the multiplication table ! And the other 
type of avaricious person who cannot see a 
flower without being consumed by the desire to 
pick it and carry it home! She pulls up every 
green thing by the roots, and strips the trees, 
and would tear the very clouds out of the sky 
if she could reach them. 

( 175 ) 



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Why this rage for possession? Ts there any 
prettier place for a pussy willow than where it 
grew by the side of the gray stone wall ? A 
spray or two in a vase will serve as a souvenir 
and a breath of beauty, but what is the use of 
an armful ? 

You cannot seize and bear away home the 
most radiant, overflowing day of spring. You 
may let it enfold you, and bathe you inside and 
out, but you cannot press it in your album or 
polish it and put it upon your parlor mantel. 
You can only accept it as it is offered, and let 
it fade when twilight comes. 

Happy, indeed, is the one who has learned 
to let life bring its joys as it will, and does not 
seek to hold those things which are fleeting, or 
to carry away for one's own use those things 
which are free to all. 

<# 8 & 

LETTING THE SPRING COME 

Springtime is the season of pushing life, of 
struggling impulse. The yellow crocuses tap 

( 176) 



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against the brown earth and the earth falls back, 
and a golden flame points up above the brown- 
ness. The winds blow the clouds across the sky 
and reveal the smiling blue. Already there is a 
faint feeling of warmth and summer stealing 
through the chill, and the earth, held so long 
in the rigid clasp of winter, seems glad to let the 
soft glow of spring creep through her veins and 
flutter down upon her. Human hearts are very 
like the heart of nature. At a touch a stern 
face relaxes into a gentle one, and dark clouds 
are blown away from moody foreheads, and only 
a smile is left. But when nature feels the tap of 
new life at her doors, she undoes her bolts and 
bars ; and when we feel the tap of a new im- 
pulse, we are apt to be ashamed and to draw 
the door more closely shut. 

How often we think of a friend who is lonely, 
or ill, or discouraged, and close upon the heels 
of the remembrance comes the feeling: " I shall 
write her a little note," " I shall try and get in 
to see her," cc I might send her a basket of 
flowers just to show her that we have n't all 
forgotten her." But it means a little trouble ; we 
( *77 ) 



Our Common Road 



are not in the habit of writing notes of senti- 
ment, and it might look a little foolish to begin 
to-day. So we do not yield to the tap of that 
flower of kindness, and the golden flame that 
might have glowed in our garden never comes 
to life. 

Many good people seem afraid of any de- 
monstrativeness. If they meet a friend unexpect- 
edly, and the sudden desire to tell her how 
much she has been missed, or how much more 
dearly she is valued than ever before, leaps into 
their hearts, it stops short there, and the little 
commonplace speech that comes to their lips 
buries the other forever. 

Some husbands are almost ashamed to kiss 
their wives and children. Some women are 
afraid to be as openhearted and kindly with all 
the world as their true selves prompt them to be. 
The social interchange of friends and acquaint- 
ances and business people might all catch some 
of the charm and freshness that comes to na- 
ture when she yields to the pressure of warm 
impulse if human hearts would yield as grace- 
fully. 

( 178) 



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Why not open our doors a little wider ? Why 
not tell our friends that we are fond of them ? 
Why not thank those to whom we are grateful, 
and extend a hand of companionship to those 
with whom we work ? 

The seeds are lying there in your heart ; all 
you have to do is to let them stretch up into 
the light. Watch the brown old earth clothing 
herself in loveliness just by letting the sunshine 
stream into her heart, and the frost creep out of 
it! Springtime stirs in your heart every time the 
impulse for kindly expression taps against it — 
though it be ever so softly. Why not let the 
hard earth fall back and the golden flame push 
up in your garden ? Why be ashamed of the 
most delicate impulse that comes to you, even 
if its coming is unexpected ? Nature is not 
ashamed of the frailest flower that quivers in the 
chill air of spring, and she breaks a way for it 
through ground that has lain icebound all the 
winter. 



( *79 ) 



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<& 9 e> 

SLOWING DOWN 

A gentleman whose summer vacation seems, 
in a most miraculous way, to empty him of 
nervousness and to transfuse him with tran- 
quillity, has established the novel custom of 
meeting his guests, not with an automobile, not 
with a pair of horses or with one, not even on 
foot, but with that most leisurely of transpor- 
tation equipages, an ox team. 

Have you ever driven in an ox team ? If such 
a privilege has not been yours, you do not know 
how slowly — how very slowly — oxen move. 
In fact, to one who has been whirled from ele- 
vated to subway, from subway to steamer, whose 
morning reading includes record trips of ocean 
liners and speed limits in aviation, an ox team 
seems to go slowly — so very slowly — that 
the first impulse, on stepping into the crude 
cart, is to laugh. And so you do laugh for a 
moment or two, and then take a sweeping sur- 
vey of the scenery and say: "Very pretty. 
Where is your house ?" 

( 180) 



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cc Oh, up the road/' returns your host, with a 
comfortable gesture of deliberation; and then 
there is a long pause. You wait expectantly for 
something to happen. Nothing happens. The 
oxen plod on ponderously. Occasionally they 
swish their tails. You sit there, screwed up to 
city tension/ 

" How far are you from the station?" you 
query, after more moments of interminable 
blankness. 

" A couple of miles," responds your host, 
with the casualness of a contented spirit; and 
you again subside and wait for something to 
happen. Nothing happens. The oxen plod on 
with rolling ponderousness. Occasionally they 
swish their tails. They move so slowly — so 
very slowly — that they seem to be evolving a 
third direction which is neither forward nor 
back, and which is less progressive than merely 
standing still. You watch the heavy rhythm of 
their bodies and you quiver with nervousness. 

Plunk, plunk, plunk — their feet come down 
on the dusty road with the peaceful sereneness 
of those who are doing their duty. Plunk, plunk, 
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Our Common Road 



plunk — the heaving undulation of their mov- 
ing fascinates you. You feel as if you had been 
traveling for aeons. 

"We need to slow down, we American people," 
remarks your host, after what seems like an hour 
or so has passed. " We need to take more time. 
A drive in an ox team is the best preparation 
I know for a holiday of relaxation/' 

You say nothing. You are wondering con- 
fusedly why you have been hurrying so franti- 
cally all these months. 

"In the summer we always take all the time 
there is," continues your host, in a voice that 
seems to be a part of the stillness. " We forget 
the sound of clocks and whistles." 

Plunk, plunk, plunk — something is relaxing 
in the tension of your body. You begin to 
breathe more deeply, more rhythmically. You 
enter the woods of profound quietness. 

The oxen plod on slowly — very slowly. 
Occasionally they swish their tails. You watch 
them, lazily, contentedly. You are in no hurry 
any more; the fever of your haste is cooling. 

Your host waves away a droning fly. 

( 182 ) 



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"Yes/' he remarks again, "this is the ABC 
of relaxation. Take time — all the time you 
can. We Americans must learn to slow down." 

« 10 * 

WHAT NATURE HAS FOR US 

The other day when I was rambling in the 
woods, I lost my winding path, and, pushing 
through a tangle of unfrequented underbrush 
and straggling vines, came upon a little open 
space from which a splendid oak reared its 
stately head high above all the surrounding 
trees, stretching its arms far out on every side. 
I stopped, and, holding the thicket aside to get 
a better view of this magnificence, caught a 
sudden flash of scarlet, and there, halfway up 
the tree, curled within three gray branches, was 
a young girl, her scarlet jacket the one bright 
glimpse in all that quiet gray and green. She 
was lying, cradled in secure comfort, her hands 
under her head, gazing through the green leaves 
up into the bluest of skies. Now and then the 
wind would sing through the branches, or a 

( 183 ) 



Our Common Road 



scudding cloud would throw a flickering shadow 
over her upturned face — no other sound, no 
other change than that. Perfectly motionless she 
lay, her face serene with the serenity of the sky 
itself. How long she had been there I do not 
know, but after a moment or two I silently ex- 
tracted myself from the clinging underbrush 
and found my way back to the path without 
her suspecting that any one had discovered her 
secret nest. 

As I slowly wound my way home I fell to 
thinking about the girl's face — how lovely it 
had been, turned innocently up into the light of 
the sky, as she lay there, trusting in the great 
gray arms to hold her as they had doubtless 
held her many times before. For this girl, with 
her scarlet jacket, lying high in the oak in mo- 
tionless contentment, had found out what many 
a girl never finds — the joy that nature shares 
with all who will accept it. 

The woman who loves her garden may not 

be able to tell you in words the healing that 

comes to her out of the warm bosom of the 

earth. The man who loves to tramp may not 

( 184) 



Our Common Road 



be able to explain to you the restfulness that 
steals through his weary spirit as he follows with 
his eyes the gentle slopes of hills, rolling pasture 
land, and limpid brooks. But the man who loves 
to tramp, the woman who loves her garden, and 
the girl who climbs for a half-hour into the 
gray cradle of a tree deep hidden in the quiet 
woods — they have all learned a secret that 
will bring them more and more comfort and 
pleasure as the years go on. 

Each one is given work to do on this earth. 
We are given friends to enjoy, amusements, 
duties, obligations, more than enough to pack 
our days too close and to clip off the fullness 
of the night; yet often in the midst of a thou- 
sand things a desire for something quite differ- 
ent creeps in upon us, and we find ourselves 
longing for we know not what. It is then that 
nature comes to those who are willing to re- 
ceive her. 

The girl who finds strength as she looks at 
the steadfastness of the hills, who finds joy in 
the clouds that float above her head, who finds 
tranquillity in the still radiance of the stars — 

(185 ) 



Our Common Road 



she knows that for every mood nature has 
an answer, and that after the fret of the day 
comes the soothing of evening. 

It is all about you everywhere. Even in the 
city is a little scrap of sky, to which you do not 
raise your eyes for days at a time. Even in the 
Public Gardens there are grass and flowers. 
Even in a single room one may have a window- 
box, with a few flowers turning their bright 
faces trustfully up for light and water. And in 
the country — why, all the earth is clothed in 
a mantle of delight. Everything is there waiting 
for you. All you have to do is to open your 
eyes and your heart. 

<S I I £> 
THE COUNTRY GRAVEYARD 

It lies peacefully on a hillside or in a meadow, 
usually in easy nearness to the winding high- 
way, its stones gleaming gray in the sunshine, 
or blanched into dazzling whiteness in the clear 
moonlight. It is none too trimly kept ; the long 
grasses sway undisturbed against the ancient 
( 186) 



Our Common Road 



mounds, and only about the fresher ones is the 
turf clipped or do the flowers bloom. 

The gravestones have settled into their 
places ; some of them slanting a little as if to 
withstand the wind, or as if to brace themselves 
to endure the long weariness of the years. Here 
and there one of the tablets has fallen and lies 
half-buried in the tangled grass, where an in- 
quisitive bird may hop curiously upon it and 
peer with bright eyes at the moss-obliterated 
inscription. 

There is nothing melancholy here ; the sun 
falls cheerfully across the uneven slopes, the 
stars shine in friendly fashion upon the white 
stones, and all green things grow in soft luxu- 
riance. Although the low-fenced yard may hold 
sad memories for those who still carry there a 
weekly offering of flowers, yet for most of us — 
mere passers-by — it is not uninviting, nor sug- 
gestive of more painful thoughts than those of 
musing reflection. 

There is no pleasanter walk for late afternoon 
or for calm moonlight than that which includes 
some old burial spot ; not depression, but a 

( 187 ) 



Our Common Road 



sense of peace and beauty rests in that still 
haven, and the clouds that float unhurryingly 
above it seem to cool the haste and soothe the 
trouble of perplexed living. 

We do not appreciate the country grave- 
yard. Too long has it been the butt of vulgar 
superstition and of morbid customs. But to 
those who love it, there is nothing gruesome 
here. It is serene — cheerful — a pleasant and 
a friendly spot. 

A book, a friend, and a sewing-bag for the 
social, a pencil and paper for collectors of quaint 
epitaphs, or just one's self with the wind and 
the grasses and the faint path — in truth, the 
dead, if they were conscious of it, would not 
refuse to share their place of repose with such 
undisturbing intruders. 

There is a wonderful charm about the coun- 
try graveyard, a beautiful quietness, a myste- 
rious peace. The serious and the curious may 
both find thoughts in their contemplation of 
these antique stones, but surely the ripple of 
light conversation, the joy of simple camarade- 
rie^ and the natural loitering of every day are 
( 188) 



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no more profanation here than is the flash of a 
bluebird's wing or the laughter of the breezes 
in the grass. 

<& 12 «* 
WATER BABIES 

We were canoeing, and had pushed our way- 
through the woods and carried the canoe up 
into a distant inland lake, which, except for red 
chimney tops of a tree-hid bungalow, seemed 
out of all human communication. As we drifted 
lazily along, we noticed on the farther shore 
two gleaming figures struggling with a dark, 
bulky something, and prompted by curiosity we 
slowly drifted in that direction. As we ap- 
proached, we saw that the figures were those of 
two tiny, naked girls, trying with might and 
main to shove out from shore a clumsy sort of 
raft. They were so engrossed that they did hot 
see us until we were fairly upon them, and then 
they scrambled to the wharf and began frantically 
to pull on their small bloomers and blouses. 

" Don't be afraid," we called to them. "We 

( 189 ) 



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don't mind about your bloomers. Can't we 
help you with the raft? " 

They paused in their hasty dressing. "Thank 
you very much/' politely responded the older 
— she was eight and had all the poise of eight- 
een ; " perhaps if you could just give the raft a 
little shove — " And so off went our shoes and 
stockings and we lent our superior strength to 
the great undertaking. 

" Oh, we are very much obliged/' they cho- 
rused together, as the crude craft slid out into 
the water ; " you see we were going to play 
flower shop, and we wanted to get those white 
flowers over there." 

" Why don't you let us help ? " we suggested. 
" We '11 push the raft with the canoe." 

" Well," they assented dubiously, " if you '11 
wait until we get on our clothes — " 

" We really don't mind your clothes at all," we 
insisted. " You '11 get them wet on the raft, any- 
way. Better take them off just as you did before." 

And, quite overjoyed, they again stripped off 
their damp little garments and waded out to 
the raft, this time clothed, one in an abbreviated 
( x 90 ) 



Our Common Road 



middy blouse and the other in the most dimin- 
utive of sweaters. 

We got the flowers, we started the flower 
shop, and then we taught them how to pole their 
raft, and we played absorbedly for an hour or 
more. And then we all discovered that we were 
hungry, and our luncheon-basket was opened 
and our picnic shared. 

By this time we were the best of friends. 
They had forgotten their first pangs of conven- 
tionality and were sporting over the raft like 
the most bewitching of water babies. Even the 
gray sweater had been discarded, and the ex- 
quisite little figure lying negligently with one 
hand propped under the round chin, and pink 
feet trailing in the water, was a sight to charm 
the gods. They were frank and gay without 
boisterousness ; jubilant without self-conscious- 
ness. They romped with the innocence and 
grace of two kittens, their beautiful little bodies 
and their happy voices weaving a spell about us 
two less joyous mortals that made us wonder if, 
perchance, the Garden of Eden had opened its 
portals once again. 

( 191 ) 



Our Common Road 



And then suddenly Mother appeared — 
Mother, who had been hunting high and low 
for them, and was worried to the point of exas- 
peration. The sight of the two paddling children 
filled her with fright, not ecstasy, and hastily we 
towed them back to shore and reassured her of 
their safety. 

" They have been forbidden to go in swim- 
ming here alone," she explained; "and I sup- 
pose they thought swimming meant bathing 
suits. They did n't call it swimming to take off 
their clothes and go in paddling up to their 
necks." And she smiled in spite of her anxiety 
as she buttoned them into their frocks. 

Reluctantly we waved farewell to our little 
playmates as they were marshaled up the hill 
and out of sight, and we lingered a moment 
waiting, perhaps, for the enchanted portals to 
swing back again, and the two gleaming, laugh- 
ing little figures to come racing down the hill. 

But they did not come, and after a long si- 
lence, we too departed, quietly. 

" Of course, parents have to look after the 
practical end of it," we decided, " and some one 
( x 92 ) 



Our Common Road 



must see that the children don't catch cold or 
get drowned. But is n't it a pity when parents 
are so obsessed by a sense of duty that they 
quite forget the pleasure of simply playing or 
watching the children play? " 

And we wondered in how many households 
the enchanted doors are allowed to swing open 
and the gayety and beauty of little children per- 
mitted to come leaping forth. 

« 1-3. •» 

THE FIR TREE 

We pushed our way out of the tangle of 
woods into a wide-rolling meadow, close-clipped 
by nibbling cows, its brown-green smoothness 
flecked here and there by patches of low bushes. 
There were no cows there now, and the even 
sweep of the curve was unbroken save for one 
bright point of green: a Lilliputian fir tree, not 
more than a foot high. It was a mere crumb 
of a tree, yet so perfect in every detail that we 
both stopped with an ejaculation of delight. 
There it stood, all alone, in that smooth rolling 
( J 93 ) 



Our Common Road 



expanse of brownness — such a sturdy, cheerful 
little tree, reproducing in miniature all the quali- 
ties of strength and symmetry of its huge 
archetype. Its quaint demureness, its stocky 
self-sufficiency and its small completeness ex- 
hibited there so fearlessly in that great pas- 
ture made us both laugh outright, and then 
catch our breaths in admiration and half-amuse- 
ment. 

Then, " Let 's take it home," we cried. "Did 
you ever see anything so tiny and so perfect ? 
We will plant it where we can always see it." 
And down we went on our knees and started 
to uproot it. 

Have you ever tried to uproot a tree twelve 
inches high without even a jack-knife to help 
you ? It looks as if a mere twist would dislodge 
it, but twenty minutes of strenuous digging left 
the pygmy fir tree still standing jauntily firm. 
We broke off two large sticks and hollowed a 
trench around it, and for each of the larger 
branch roots we engineered a small canal. We 
dug with the sticks and we dug with our fin- 
gers. We made a hole that looked as if it must 
( *94 ) 



Our Common Road 



reach to China, and still we could not budge it. 
We burrowed like moles and we tugged like 
oxen, and the small fir tree stood upright in 
cheerful unconcern. Down, down, down, we 
were up to our elbows before our fingers, fol- 
lowing the taproot, felt it dwindling into a mere 
forked thread. And then, both together, we 
gave a tremendous pull, and the little tree lay 
at our feet. We stared in amazement at the 
length of root. It was longer than the tree itself. 
Even some of the smaller roots measured nearly 
as much as the pretty green point. And looking 
at each other, we both said with our eyes: "So 
that is why it stood so bravely and so sturdily 
in this big meadow stretch. " 

There is always so much we do not see. The 
woman whose cheery charm seems as light and 
easy as a summer's breeze may have a character 
based upon years of self-control and silent 
struggle. The man whose debonair manners 
delight us has passed through a long school 
of practice, and how many attempts, how many 
searching roots do you suppose a successful 
man or woman of any profession has put forth 

( 195) 



Our Common Road 



— roots we do not even suspect as we gaze with 
admiration at the complete effect. 

Months and months went into the slow 
growth of that fearless little tree — months and 
months below the surface as well as above, 
working themselves out into a dauntlessness 
that even our ruthlessness could not destroy. 

Months and months pass in our lives — 
months which seem dull enough and purpose- 
less enough to discourage the most sanguine. 
But something is always working itself out be- 
low the surface if not above it. And the trees 
which endure the longest are the ones which 
grow most slowly. 

# 14 %> 
SEEING PICTURES 

A wood fire was flickering in the square old- 
fashioned red fireplace, held up by straddling 
andirons and fenced in by a glittering brass 
fender. Before the fender, in the center of the 
neatly swept hearth, sat a small gray kitten, her 
tail curled about her, her little ears daintily 
( 196 ) 



Our Common Road 



pricked, her little feet demurely together, watch- 
ing with the wide eyes of kittenhood the slowly 
rising smoke. The room was still ; there was no 
one near ; only the diminutive gray kitten com- 
posedly surveying the gently cracking flames 
in the deep fireplace — surely an exquisite pic- 
ture of contentment and tranquillity ; and yet 
the young girl at the table was idly turning the 
leaves of a magazine, hunting for some sketch 
or snatch of verse to amuse her. 

It was late evening, and over the surface of 
a pond a mist was gradually rising, veiling the 
outline of the hills and the sweep of the mead- 
ows. All was vague ghostly whiteness, when 
through the clinging film struggled a single dis- 
tant light. It was only the lantern rays from 
some remote and solitary hut, but it was strangely 
mysterious — wonderfully significant of loneli- 
ness, of pathos, of innumerable untranslatable 
things ; and yet a dozen people passed without 
lifting their eyes to its beauty or their hearts to 
its dim charm. 

Those who have not learned to see pictures 
in the simple life around them are losing whole 
( J 97 ) 



Our Common Road 



galleries of joy every day. We cannot all be 
artists and draw out the meaning of common 
things in painting or in poetry, but we can all 
cultivate our perceptions. You may have a false 
eye for color ; like the young man who started 
out to paint a night scene with black paint, you 
may not be able to distinguish various tints and 
shades. Or your sense of proportion may be 
faulty and deny you the pure pleasure that 
comes from seeing and appreciating some object 
of perfect grace. But we nearly all have some 
simple capacity for seeing pictures, which, if we 
developed, would bring us great delight. It may 
be the significance of the scene that appeals to 
you, as in that haunting gleam of light across 
the lonely mere ; or it may be the cozy comfort 
portrayed, as by the gray kitten before the fire ; 
or it may be the story suggested, or the romance 
hinted, or the gayety or the somberness of the 
scene, that gives it value to you. But we may 
all learn to look for something and to see some- 
thing even in the most ordinary processes of 
every day. The painter sees possibilities for 
pictures everywhere ; the novelist sees plots, 

( 198) 



Our Common Road 



the dramatist situations, the reporter news, the 
camera devotee light and shade. It may be a 
young girl leaning over a fence or a child with 
a penny or an old lady sitting in the window — 
or it may be the first star in the sky or only a 
gleam of sunlight across a dusty desk; but there 
are pictures everywhere. And all we have to do 
is to see them. 

<$■ 15 #> 

A PLEA FOR HORSEBACK RIDING 

It was late afternoon, the long rays of the 
sun slanted through the pines and fell across the 
bright blue pond with its white encircling beach. 
Hills rose on all sides of the sparkling water, 
their greenness meeting the answering blue of 
the sky. The little scene lay hushed in the 
fading light, in that strange, almost breathless 
stillness which precedes the gathering twilight. 
And then, from the distance, came the soft, 
rhythmical tread of horses' feet, and for an in- 
stant a brown horse with its rider — a girl, in 
brown, too — were silhouetted against the sky. 
Then they came slowly down the hillside, fol- 
( *99 ) 



Our Common Road 



lowing a winding path to the water. At the white 
sand the horse paused, indecisive, but the girl 
urged him on, and he waded in deep and plunged 
in his nose to drink. When he lifted his drip- 
ping head, they both paused to listen and to 
look. To listen to the sound of the evening 
breeze in the trees, and to look at the long 
sunlight shafts across the opalescent water, the 
gleaming sand, and, framing it all, the somber 
line of hills. And then horse and girl wheeled 
abruptly about, trotted up the hill, were out- 
lined against the sky for a moment, and then 
growing more and more distant, disappeared. 

Why is there so little horseback riding now- 
adays? How rarely we hear a group of riders 
clattering down the country highway, or meet 
a solitary one cantering along the pleasant road! 
What has happened to the love of the sport and 
the appreciation of the accomplishment? What 
exhilaration can compare with the exhilaration of 
feeling a living animal beneath you, beating with 
regular footbeat a hard road of pine needles and 
breathing in the air as you breathe it in? What 
has happened to the custom of horseback riding? 
( 200 ) 



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Too expensive, comes the wail. Expensive, 
compared to an automobile? And look at the 
automobiles passing your door every hour. Dan- 
gerous? Glance at the accidents in the morning 
paper. Do you think that horseback riding is 
more dangerous than going up in flying ma- 
chines, or sailing, or racing behind fast horses, 
or traveling in trains, or driving a motor? Too 
difficult to learn and too violent exercise? A 
little more exercise would lessen your doctor's 
bills and improve your figure, and as for diffi- 
culty — why, that is part of any recreation. 

No; the reason for the decline of horseback 
riding is that people have forgotten all about it. 
They have quite forgotten the romance and the 
charm of it, and are so used to being carried 
about in motors that they cannot remember any 
other method of locomotion. Or they think that 
it is such an elaborate proceeding. They think 
that if they cannot cut a dash in the park or 
jump fences or perform at the horse shows there 
is no use riding at all. 

But it is quite possible to get a gentle saddle 
horse and have a great deal of enjoyment with- 
( 201 ) 



Our Common Road 



out any tremendous expenditure of money or 
of strength : a simple pleasure, neither danger- 
ous nor extravagant. Why not consider it when 
planning for a new amusement? 

<« 16 B» 

AUTUMN DECORATIONS 

Imagine yourself within a small stone church : 
it is gray, gray with its ancient stone and gray 
with its four hundred years. It stands, deep 
settled, on a hillside in England, a quiet hillside 
far from the track of travel, and not mentioned 
even in the most adequate of Baedekers. There 
is a service being held there, and the handful of 
worshipers gathered piously together are listen- 
ing to the single priest as he conducts their 
prayers of thanksgiving for Harvest Home. 

But what strikes us outsiders most strangely 
is the extraordinary and beautiful decoration of 
the place of worship, for loving hands have 
been busy here for days bringing their fairest 
and choicest offerings until the simple little 
building is aglow with color. There are only a 
( 202 ) 



Our Common Road 



few flowers — the effective massing, the dashes 
of color, and the delicate tracery are all gained 
by the skillful placing of fruits and vegetables. 
That great branch of green with its crimson 
globes, almost hiding the lectern, is not a full- 
blown rose tree, but a perfect tomato plant with 
its gleaming fruit still upon it. Those golden 
bouquets are of carrots, that fine background 
is of their feathery tops. There is something 
splendid in that superb rich pumpkin crowning 
the baptismal font, and even the brown potatoes 
piled at its base have a certain rude dignity. 

Let your eye rest long upon this picture: 
the overflowing heaps of earth's produce — the 
plentiful baskets of radiant fruit. Look at it 
long and well, for these simple folk bringing 
the best of their gardens as their offering for the 
Harvest Home have come into an artistic truth 
that we, for all our sophistication, have yet 
fully to appreciate. 

Fruits and vegetables are the most lovely 

and effective decorations, and yet not one woman 

in a hundred realizes this. They buy or pick 

conventional bunches of posies and place them 

( 203 ) 



Our Common Road 



on the table for a centerpiece, but do not know 
enough to see the possibilities in the peaches 
and plums, the peppers and beans, the beets 
and onions that lie upon their kitchen tables. 

The girl who loves to paint china sees nothing 
which delights her in common vegetables, and 
yet she could find color and grace in them as 
well as in flowers. The embroiderer, the sten- 
ciler, and the household decorator are most of 
them singularly blind to the aesthetic value of 
the ordinary things that grow in the ordinary 
kitchen garden. 

And yet beauty is everywhere if we will but 
recognize it. The use of vegetables and fruits 
for decorative effects has been long neglected. 
Open your eyes for what may be done for your 
delight with the simple things at hand — with 
your shining melons, your jolly red beets, and 
your slim, tapering carrots. 

Why wait until the Thanksgiving season to 
see the glory in your garden and orchard fruits ? 
Look for it to-day in the garden, in the kitchen, 
and in the market stalls. 



( 2 °4 ) 



Our Common Road 



<# 17 e> 

THE CHILD AND HIS TOY 

Did you ever realize that the history of any 
country and the standards of any community 
and the taste of any family may be found crys- 
tallized in the toys of the children? 

The child whose home is in the land of snow 
and ice plays with a sled and a fur rug, a deer's 
foot and a polar bear made of sheep's wool, 
while the city child has his diminutive trolley 
cars, his stationary engines, and toys of elaborate 
and delicate mechanism. "Every great war 
leaves soldiers in the nursery cupboard dressed 
correctly to a strap and button," and "even the 
children of the French Revolution had their toy 
guillotines." 

Can't you remember some doll that once was 
yours, and which, to your childish fancy, em- 
bodied all the beauty of the world? There was 
an expression in those gentle eyes that you recall 
with an affectionate thrill even to this day, and 
if you should again behold Arabella Christobel, 
or whatever euphonious name you lovingly 
( 2 °5 ) 



Our Common Road 



chose for her, and your mature intelligence told 
you that she was only a rather battered doll, with 
flaxen hair sadly out of curl, with a blank coun- 
tenance and uncomprehending eye, and a kid 
body both limp and soiled, yet unless the world 
has pressed all sentiment out of your heart, it 
would leap with joy, and you would clasp her 
to you as you clasped her when you were a little 
girl of four, still believing that she was the most 
beautiful doll in the world. 

As for your toy horse — why, I can never see 
one of those chunky little brown horses, with a 
light sorrel mane and tail, either in a shop win- 
dow with a ring of worshiping childish faces 
pressed against the glass, or in larger size and 
different degree between the shafts of a grocer's 
cart, or trotting before some pony carriage, but 
a great desire wells up in my heart to throw my 
arms about that smooth brown neck and murmur 
an adoring " Brown Betty " in the pretty pointed 
ear. 

Our Arabella Christobels and Brown Bettys 
were probably not incredibly beautiful creatures. 
They were just ordinarily pretty and rather 
( 206 ) 



Our Common Road 



extraordinarily well made, and they hold their 
supreme place in our hearts because they came 
to us when we were very small, and because we 
wove about them all those fond fancies that 
crude maturity cannot describe, but only wistfully 
and vaguely remember. 

But what would we do if, instead of the charm- 
ingly sweet countenance of Arabella Christobel, 
we could only recall as a childhood's comrade 
one of those grotesque and leering things that 
we see in the arms of the children to-day ? If, 
instead of a plump and well-formed Brown Betty 
we had hugged some distorted and hideous crea- 
ture supposed to be "comic"? Can modern 
children love their abnormally ugly playthings 
as we loved our mild-faced ones of once upon 
a time? Yes, they can and do love them; and 
the child who has worshiped some grotesque 
object has less beauty to warm his heart, and to 
feed his imagination on all his life long, than 
the child who has with him some faint yet ever- 
lasting vision of supernatural loveliness. 

When the trapper tosses a rabbit skin to his 
little son or models a pair of doll's snowshoes 
( 207 ) 



Our Common Road 



for his little daughter, it is because he wants his 
son to be a trapper too, and his daughter to be 
a sturdy lass of out-of-doors. And when your 
mother placed a smiling waxen vision in your 
arms, she gave you something you might cherish 
as beautiful and rare. 

And when you give your little son some 
elaborately ugly creature that is false to fancy as 
well as false to nature, when you toss him hid- 
eous comic pictures to look at and silly cheap 
stories to read, you, too, are shaping the images 
which will come back to him all his life. The 
choice is in your hands. 

<s 18 #> 

THE SUCCESSFUL WOMAN 

The mania for "doing things" gains more 
and more impetus as the days go by. Many a 
young girl — and the college graduate in par- 
ticular — is apt to feel that her education has 
been wasted and that she is deteriorating unless 
she rushes into print, throws herself into a 
settlement class, takes a course of study, and 

( 208 ) 



Our Common Road 



does something definite to improve herself or 
the community. The modern woman feels it 
urgently incumbent upon her to be intelligent, 
energetic, and independent. She is conscientious 
and endeavors to be well informed upon every 
conceivable topic. 

And no one can deny that this is excellent. 
But meanwhile the woman who is too busy with 
household cares to be strenuously progressive 
or up-to-date gets a little discouraged, and the 
girl at home who has no particular talent eyes 
her cleverer acquaintances with mute envy. 

The women of to-day are, indeed, doing 
great things. In social and economic reforms 
they are foremost. In research work they are 
forging steadily ahead. Girls in the business 
world are making splendid headway, and women 
in professional fields are highly successful. But 
the fact remains that the women who really con- 
stitute the backbone of any country are not the 
few brilliant women in public life, or the many 
working-women in business life. The women 
who are doing the greatest work of the country 
are those who have always done it. They are 
( 209 ) 



Our Common Road 



those women who, through their pure characters 
and their sweet influences, make their homes a 
center of happiness, who rear wholesome chil- 
dren, who make their fathers and brothers and 
husbands and mothers happier and better be- 
cause of their presence. Not what she does, but 
what she is, makes the successful woman. 

It is not given to every woman to make a 
home or to contribute to a home: many thou- 
sands are forced into the world; some choose to 
go out. But the most fortunate women are 
those who are doing, not the spectacular things, 
but just those simple duties that are sometimes 
spoken of with weariness or even with half- 
contempt, but which should always be spoken 
of with reverence — woman's work. 

So much is said about the modern woman, with 
her well-trained mind and her many activities, 
that the old-fashioned woman sometimes feels 
quite useless and unnecessary. If she would 
only realize that more is not said about her be- 
cause we accept her as we accept the blue sky, the 
sunshine, and all the kindly fruits of the world! 

The girl who goes down and labors with the 
( 2I ° ) 



Our Common Road 



poor and the destitute and the alien, and then 
writes a book about it, is doing good work and 
deserves the praise that comes to her. And the 
girl who lives in the village where she was born, 
helping where she can and scattering good cheer; 
the girl who is a restful influence in all this sea 
of unrest ; the girl who is content to be sweet and 
does not join the mad scramble to be clever, is do- 
ing good work, too, and deserves the praise that 
usually does not come to her except indirectly. 
So many issues to be decid-ed to-day ! So 
many calls in every direction! Honors granted 
to women in every profession and in every field ! 
Small wonder if the woman at home sometimes 
doubts if she is doing her part toward the world's 
progress. She need never doubt it. She can be 
sure that she is making the most fundamental 
contribution toward progress that any woman can 
make. But her reward does not come to her as 
it does to the woman in public life. It comes 
as Ruskin said happiness should come to all 
good women: "Her path is, indeed, strewn 
with flowers, but they spring behind her foot- 
steps and not before them." 

( 211 ) 



Our Common Road 



<& 19 & 

DOVES AND DRAGONS 

"James, you are certainly the most disagree- 
able man on the face of the earth," ejaculates 
his exasperated spouse as James refuses to talk; 
and, curiously enough, this observation does not 
seem to stimulate James to conversation, except 
of a very tart variety. 

"You naughty, wicked child, come here," 
cries the weary nursemaid, as her freshly tubbed 
charge sits down in the dust and refuses to 
budge; and, unmoved by the persuasive epithet, 
the naughty, wicked child still continues to sit 
in the dust. 

It is only the working-out of a very simple 
principle; we each harbor two strange guests 
within our bosoms, — a dove and a dragon. Call 
upon the first, and it will try to answer; call 
upon the second, and it will surely respond. 

You know how some people always rouse 

your antagonism ; they make you balky the 

minute they appear upon the horizon. Other 

people immediately make you expansive, gener- 

( 2I2 ) 



Our Common Road 



ous, genial. The first comes looking for trouble, 
and all your potentialities in that direction rise 
to meet her. The second knocks upon that door 
of your heart which leads to kindly things, and 
you open before you are aware. 

Do you scold ? If you do, did you ever stop 
to think what it is you call forth to scold? You 
call forth all the ugly things in your child's or 
your servant's or your husband's nature, and 
you scold these things. But do you praise? If 
so, then you first coax into the light all the 
gentle traits and the lovable ones, and you praise 
them. 

The present-day tendency never to think of 
anything that is disagreeable has its dangers. If 
there are dragons in the world, they must be 
vanquished, not merely ignored. A sharp com- 
bat is sometimes the salvation of character. But 
it need not be roused only to be worried and 
teased and annoved. 

Of course, you may sometimes invoke one 

and get the other. Crossed wires occur in the 

psychological world as well as in the electrical. 

But still it is always a good plan to know 

( 2I 3 ) 



Our Common Road 



what you want, even if you cannot always get 
it. 

When you ring the bell of your friend's 
heart, be sure you know to whom you wish to 
speak. 

<%■ 20 ■&> 

THE CHILDREN'S CLOTHES 

A very wise mother remarked the other day 
that while it grieved her to see her pretty seven- 
teen-year-old daughter wearing a hat that came 
so far down over her eyes that she had to tilt her 
head back to see in front of her nose; that while 
the fuzzy, down-over-your-eyebrows style of 
hair-dressing seemed to her an abomination; 
and the petticoatless regime immodest and ugly; 
yet, she said, she tried to reconcile herself to all 
these things, because she remembered that when 
one is young there is no pleasure that equals 
being in the fashion, and no agony like that of 
being different from one's mates, even if that 
difference is on the side of better taste. 

The profession of being a mother does, in- 
deed, seem marvelously intricate: if you let 

( 2H ) 



Our Common Road 



your daughter do as she pleases, you are con- 
demned for not giving her the proper training. 
If you train her too carefully, she repays you 
when she attains to woman's estate by remark- 
ing that she was always suppressed and unhappy 
during her childhood; — thus the over-indul- 
gent and the unduly rigid learn of their mistakes 
when it is too late. 

It was a well-known woman who once re- 
marked that when she was little, she was a pic- 
turesque-looking child, and her mother, although 
they were not rich, made a great effort to dress 
her as she herself had been dressed forty years 
before; she sent to France and had her shoes 
made, and she sent to England for the stuffs for 
her frocks, and she dressed her like a charming 
picture of olden time. The little girl is now a 
middle-aged woman, and she says that indelibly 
fixed in her mind is a picture that greeted her 
eyes, when on her seventh birthday she came 
down the stairway and caught sight of herself in 
along mirror. She can remember that even to her 
childish eyes the image reflected there was very 
beautiful, but that her only emotion was, not one 

( 215 ) 



Our Common Road 



of pride, but of rebellion and rage because she 
looked so different from all the other children. 

Collect a roomful of grown people and you 
will be amazed to hear how many apparently 
happy childhoods were embittered by being 
forced to endure some real or fancied differen- 
tiation from their playfellows. 

A man will tell you that he can yet feel the 
hot flush of shame that stung his cheeks when 
he had to wear silk stockings to dancing-class 
when all the other boys wore woolen, and some 
elderly lady will confess that one of the bitterest 
draughts she ever had to drain was when she 
had her hair in curls when all the other little 
girls were braided and banged. 

For some reason many children are shy about 
expressing this feeling. Often they see that their 
fond mother has her heart set upon Fauntleroy 
suits or long-waisted frocks, and so they suffer 
in silence. Often their little pleas are over- 
ridden by a cheerful and domineering authority, 
who would be horrified to know of the tears 
wept during the night over the thought of the 
clothes to be worn during the day. 
( 216 ) 



Our Co?nmon Road 



A mother can do much to train the taste of 
her children, but even at six or seven many 
youngsters have insistent preferences about what 
they really want, and a reasonable recognition of 
these preferences makes all the difference in the 
world between the remembrance of a childhood 
that was of unalloyed sunshine and one that was 
beclouded and full of smothered tears. 

* 21 * 
THE MAKING AND MENDING OF A FAUX PAS 

"An afterthought/' says the funny man, "is 
a mad desire to shut your mouth after you have 
put your foot in it" ; and alarming as that defi- 
nition may appear, it pales before the horrible 
reality of the actual sensation. There some- 
times seems to be a malign spirit hovering near 
who puts into our mouths speeches that sound 
innocent enough in the uttering, but before 
they reach the ears of others are transformed 
into frightful things, very much as the harmless- 
looking Japanese paper sticks that you drop in 
water are transformed into dragons andwildmen. 
( 2I 7 ) 



Our Common Road 



The well-intentioned woman who remarked 
at a dinner that she had always heard that twins 
were not so bright as other people, experienced a 
most painful moment when her right-hand neigh- 
bor gravely turned his eyes upon her and said 
with unmistakable clearness: "I am a twin." 

There are certain subjects that we have all 
learned to fight shy of: religion and politics are 
generally conceded to be dangerous topics. But 
how was the young girl who dilated dramatically 
upon the cause and effect of suicide to know 
that the father of her listener had recently shot 
himself? There is no possible way, outside of 
second-sight, by which we can comprehend with- 
out being specifically told that our companion 
may be a kleptomaniac, or that her husband 
makes his money in the liquor business, or that 
her brother is half-witted, or that there is Negro 
blood in the family; and if we are unfortunate 
enough to mention any of these peculiarities, we 
can do absolutely nothing to rectify the disaster. 

The only person who can save the situation 
is the person whom it hits. If some one declares 
emphatically that he despises the kind of a per- 

( «« ) 



Our Common Road 



son who takes tea for breakfast, you need not 
confess that tea for breakfast is your especial 
delight. If you say nothing, your blithe de- 
nouncer will never know that he has made a 
break, and will not want to sink through the 
floor the next time he sees you coming. 

Why enlighten the prejudiced woman, who 
insists that she never trusts left-handed people, 
that your mother is left-handed? It only puts 
her in one uncomfortable hole and yourself in 
another. 

Sometimes a casual word will hit home with 
terrific and salutary force, but then your feeling 
should be one of gratitude, not malice. If the 
cap fits, put it on; that is your own affair; and 
no one need ever know that you gasped with 
painful indignation unless you tell them your- 
self. But this is not a break; it is only a truth 
which you suddenly realize. 

No one can mend a break — a real faux pas — 
any more than any one can put Humpty Dumpty 
together again, and we learned very early in life 
that all the king's horses and all the king's men 
were powerless to do that. 
( 2I 9 ) 



Our Common Road 



But breaks may be mercifully concealed if 
the one who is struck is only quickwitted enough 
and generous enough to let them slip, and to 
say nothing, hoping that on a similar occasion 
she may be as kindly treated herself. 

<a 22 & 

FURNISHING HOUSES AND MINDS 

Suppose you had a very charming house and 
you wanted to make it pleasing in every way, 
what would you do? You would furnish it as 
delightfully as you could, hang the pictures you 
loved best upon its walls, place your favorite 
books upon its shelves, get well-trained servants 
to care for it, and try to make it look homelike. 
You would live in it and enjoy it, and then, 
finally, you would invite people to come to it. 

There are a few men and women who really 
do not want human society ; they prefer their 
own company to that of any one else. But these 
people are in the minority, for most of us like 
other people ; we are glad when they come to see 
us, and delighted when they bring their friends. 
( 220 ) 



Our Common Road 



The greatest treat imaginable is a new and enter- 
taining person, and how widely we open our 
doors does any distinguished visitor crave admit- 
tance ! 

Hospitality is a virtue that is, indeed, its own 
reward. It is both an art and a recreation. The 
most magnetic homes are those where different 
kinds of people assemble — different ages, dif- 
ferent sexes, different types. A room full of 
middle-aged women does not begin to be as 
pleasing to the eye or as stimulating to the im- 
agination as a room where you see youth and age, 
freshness and mellowness, darkness and light, 
in an ever-changing panorama of combinations. 

And what is true of the hospitable house is 
true of the hospitable mind. Many women have 
minds, well trained, well furnished, and well 
controlled. But their personalities are as empty 
and lifeless as a house which was beautifully 
equipped and perfectly run would be if it had 
no one in it but the solitary owner. To make 
your home interesting, you must bring in new 
people ; to make your mind interesting, you 
must bring in new ideas. 

( 221 ) 



Our Common Road 



Even in this day of progressiveness most of 
us are incredibly narrow. We shut out any new 
idea that looks as if it might be disconcerting, 
just as the old-fashioned housekeeper shut out 
the brilliance of the sunshine lest it fade her par- 
lor carpet. And how do we think we are to get 
new light on old problems if we always keep 
the curtains down ? 

Take yourself, for example. Suppose some 
new idea, or some idea that you have always 
thought repugnant to you, should be advanced, 
— woman's suffrage, Christian Science, social- 
ism, or any belief that is different from your 
present belief, — what would you do ? You would 
probably promptly shut the door of your mind 
and refuse absolutely to glance out even for a 
second. And yet, sometimes the poorest of 
strangers prove to be noble guests. 

You need not make your house an inn where 
any roistering crew may come trooping, and you 
need not open your mind to all the trash that 
is in circulation. But eager hospitality, a wide 
opening of doors to old friends and a readiness 
to accept ones whom we never thought we could 
( 222 ) 



Our Common Road 



welcome — this is what gives zest to any home 
and life to any mental habitation. 

OLD LADIES AND YOUNG ONES 

With the gradual discarding of many of the 
traditional courtesies and observances has come 
the present offhand and casual attitude of the 
younger generation toward the older. If a wo- 
man past middle age is attractive, she has the 
usual circle of admiring friends and acquaintances 
that surrounds attractiveness in old or young; 
but if she is simply old and not especially in- 
teresting, it is more than probable that she has 
few young callers and few youthful ties. 

And just as when we were children we thought 
of grown people as a race set apart, with lives 
full of curiously independent and enjoyable busi- 
ness which was quite beyond our powers, so the 
very aged seem to look out somewhat wistfully 
into the busy world of youth and wish, perhaps, 
that it would pause occasionally and open to 
them a glimpse of that outside rush and stir. 
( 223 ) 



Our Common Road 



But the chief losers are the young people 
themselves. Only those who have been gifted 
with the pleasant friendship of their elders and 
felt the charm of that detached and yet intimate 
point of view which comes with the process of 
years, know how delightful and how enriching 
such relationships may be. Old ladies have an 
indefinable fascination, not because of any indi- 
vidual characteristics, but simply because the 
mere living through a long period of years 
works out something strange and beautiful in 
human beings: they acquire a bloom as elusive 
as the bloom of youth — as delicately fragile, 
as mysteriously transient. 

In the days of the past young people may 
have met their elders in a stiff and artificial way, 
but they were brought into contact with them 
after some fashion. Now there are plenty of 
young girls and men who cannot count a single 
older person in their list of personal friends — 
a double impoverishment, as age craves the 
spontaneous companionship of youth, and youth 
needs the softening influence of those who are 
wiser. Such friendships are compliments to both. 
( 22 4 ) 



Our Common Road 



Politeness alone would demand more gracious 
consideration from the younger to the older 
generation if politeness were any longer in vogue ; 
but this is the day of naturalness, and etiquette 
as an art has fallen into disuse. But even so, 
there is another reason: sincere enjoyment is 
the strongest attraction, and this may be found 
often and easily if we but give it a chance. The 
piquant pleasure of contrast, the stimulation of 
opposites — these, as well as the gentle human- 
izing effect, should bring about more vital inter- 
est and more quiet reverence from young ladies 
to old. 

<& 24 £> 
BONDS OF HONOR 

Do you ever look down upon some great city 
from the high tower of your mind's eye and see 
the men working there as bees work in their 
honey cells, toiling day after day and year after 
year, trying, each one, to maintain a certain 
standard of efficiency in his business and a cer- 
tain standard of honor in his life? As you look 
upon this struggling mass of men, does each 
( 22 5 ) 



Our Common Road 



one seem to you harnessed by invisible threads, 
driven by an invisible whip, and drawing an in- 
visible load ? Many are the whips that drive the 
working-man, — whips of necessity, ambition, 
and desire, — and the threads that tie and bind 
him are as numerous as the tiny cables which 
the Lilliputians wound about Gulliver. But 
one of the longest whips that drive men into 
success, and one of the strongest cords that hold 
them fast to honor, are home ties and home 
bonds. 

How many a man do you suppose has fal- 
tered before some unsavory deed and, perhaps, 
turned away from it because the influence of his 
wife has tightened itself about his heart and 
drawn him away from the thing he would be 
ashamed to do? How many a man do you 
suppose has refused to soil his name because 
that name is the only heritage which he can 
leave his son? 

There is nothing a father can give his child 
that will mean more to that child than a repu- 
tation and character of high honor. There is no 
handicap so great as the knowledge that one's 
( 226 ) 



Our Common Road 



own family is unstable or shifty or underhanded. 
The first step toward failure is lack of confi- 
dence in one's self, and what can possibly under- 
mine our confidence in ourselves so fatally as 
to know that we have sprung from weak or 
vicious stock? 

The man who leaves a name of shame to his 
family has poisoned the very springs of their 
being; he has done more to cripple them than 
if he had broken their legs and arms. Disgrace 
freezes up the rarest fountains ; lack of confi- 
dence in what we are and in what we come from 
is the most enfeebling weakness in the world. 

The women in the world weave the bonds 
that hold the men to honor. They may give 
themselves to whom they will ; they may set 
their price as high as they wish. 

Look down from the high tower of your 
mind's eye, you women everywhere, and see 
men working for you, and for your children, 
bound by the cables which you tie, and facing 
the goal which you set before them. The invis- 
ible thread that holds each one to his standard 
of business efficiency and his standard of honor 
( 22 7 ) 



Our Common Road 



you spin out of your character and your idealism. 
You have the privilege of choosing only whom 
you will, and asking of him what you most de- 
sire. Look at the men in the world. Whom are 
they working for if not for you? What are they 
working for if not for your approval? What 
will you demand ? What threads will you weave ? 

* 25 » 

KITTENS 

Gray ones are preferable — gray ones with 
white feet. Four is the magic number, but there 
may be five. Of course, the first requisite is the 
mother. Choose a gentle gray tabby, and feed 
her fair and sleep her fine. Much petting, too 
much petting, is just enough. And then some 
day you will all be sitting around in an adoring 
circle watching four small fluffs of gray rolling 
over each other in the softest of ecstasies. 

It is amazing how engrossing they find life 
and their surroundings. There are always chairs 
with rungs to be crawled over and swung from ; 
there are corners of rugs to be examined with 

( "8 ) 



Our Common Road 



wide, blinking blue eyes; there are holes and 
crevices through which wee paws may be thrust 
and the lightest of biffs given and received in 
equal innocence. There are uncountable mys- 
teries to be fathomed connected with one's own 
person, as, for instance, — a tail. Mother's tail 
is an object of endless fascination as she waves 
it slowly back and forth, — mother's tail and 
brothers' and sisters' tails, — and furry gray ears 
are delightful things to suck when one is a furry 
gray kitten. 

As for romping, it is incredible how much 
romping four small kittens can accomplish in one 
day. Rolling over and over, and then over again, 
bracing white feet against other white feet, nip- 
ping at a pink velvety nose with a pink velvety 
mouth; reflectively starting in to chew another 
bit of gray puff that happens to be near, and 
suddenly receiving a knock-out blow as the gray 
puff awakes from surprised slumber. 

There are always exploration parties afoot 

when there are four gray kittens to man them. 

The piano stool must be scaled with infinite 

difficulty and then descended with unprepared 

( 229 ) 



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velocity, and the piano itself must be tapped, 
very tentatively by what promises to be a mild 
promenade, but is transformed by the first un- 
expected sound into a terrified leap through the 
startled air and a mad scurry to a remote corner. 

And then there is sleeping to be done, a deal 
of sleeping. One may curl up by one's self in 
a downy ball, or stretch one's self full length in 
an absurd imitation of a lion, or lie lovingly 
close to mother under her gentle arm. When 
there are four of you there is an infinite variety 
of attitudes which may be tried, such as a head 
under gray brother's stomach and a foot in gray 
sister's mouth. 

As for nursing-time, the world-worn and 
work-weary stand in wonder that is almost 
solemn at this sight of complete contentment 
and utter repose. 

If there must be a point, a moral, a purpose 
to justify kittens, their existence and their claim 
to any attention either literary or otherwise, ask 
any hostess who has a house filled with guests 
what other form of entertainment can rival that 
of a basketful of kittens. Most satisfactorily will 
( 230 ) 



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they fill in all those gaps before and after meal- 
times when the family and visitors are yawning 
for a momentary amusement. They are a solace 
of the lonely, a relaxation for the jaded, and a 
never-ending resource of delight and joy to all 
who will pause to look and to wonder. 




§^^^^» ^«« <c «««jg 



To the Land of Reflection 

<& I 6> 
CHRISTMAS DAY 

Once again it has dawned, the day of all the 
year; the day which, when we were children and 
waiting for the morning light to filter in through 
the frosty windows, seemed so long in coming, 
and now that we are no longer children seems 
to swing around so quickly that, as we welcome 
this one, all the Christmases of all the years 
crowd back upon us, and we see them standing 
in a long dream procession smiling at us through 
laughter or through tears. 

If there is any happiness which is a right for 
any human being, surely the right of a happy 
Christmas for children must receive first place. 
The child whose Christmases have not been 
made festivals of bewildering ecstasy has lost 
more than the present delight; he has lost a 
rapture which was his birthright, and a memory 
which should have been his for all his life. 
( 2 35 ) 



Our Common Road 



Not that Christmas Day should be joyful 
for children only; it should be the day of most 
wonderful, most overflowing gladness for every 
man and woman on this whole wide earth, and 
the light of all the Christmas candles should be 
reflected in every human face, and the music of 
all the Christmas carols should sound in every 
human voice. 

This is what Christmas should be; but alas 
for us, it is not so. Christmas brings its grief as 
well as its pleasure to many a home; death and 
sickness and disaster do not pause upon this day 
or upon any day, and for thousands of people 
Christmas is heavy with sorrow and dimmed 
with tears. The remembrance of cheerful years 
only deepens the sadness of the present, and the 
echo of merry Christmases makes the loneliness 
of this more poignant. 

Even to those to whom Christmas has no 
sharp associations of pain, the very process of 
time has brought with it something of melan- 
choly — for time breaks many a genial circle and 
snaps many a pleasant cord. The children are to 
be gay on Christmas because they are the only 

( 236) 



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ones whose gayety is unalloyed, and who do not 
listen in vain in the mingling of voices for a 
voice which they will not hear, and look out 
upon the light of enchantment and mystery 
only through many shadows. 

But it is not the children who make Christmas, 
nor is it those who regard them wistfully. Christ- 
mas is the day of days not because of any indi- 
vidual happiness or any individual sentiment. 
It lives from year to year not through the merit 
of any one of us, or because of our failings ; nor 
can our raptures nor our desolation spoil it. 

Christmas is an ideal, and its home is in no 
heart and in every heart. If you were blind, that 
would not destroy the sunshine; if you were 
deaf, that would not silence all music. Because 
you cannot fill your cup of happiness to the 
brim to-day does not mean that the stream of 
joy is dwindling, but only that your cup is im- 
perfect. 

No matter what your own personal Christmas 

may be ; no matter what you have had or have 

never had or will never have, Christmas itself 

is still radiant, triumphant, full of all great sig- 

( 237 ) 



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nificance and all eternal joy, because it does not 
depend for its essence upon our human desires 
or satisfactions, but has its source in something 
greater than any one of us. 

It is here, like a shaft of glory from heaven, 
and our personal enjoyments or personal depri- 
vations neither make nor mar its perfect love- 
liness. 

Christmas is the festival of love; of the joy 
that comes from love and the joy that ministers 
to love; it is a light which will never be taken 
away from us and can never be injured by us 
through all our folly or bitterness. Greater than 
all of us, but not too great for any of us, for its 
solemn exaltation does not prevent us, but 
beckons ; and poor and stumbling as we are, we 
may still fill our little cups at its great fount, and 
may light our trembling candles at its inviolate 
shrine. 

<# 2 S> 
TIME THE INTERPRETER 

On the stage we see a man make a fortune, 
lose it, blow out his brains, disgrace his family, 
( 238 ) 



Our Common Road 



and drive his wife insane in almost as short a 
space as it takes to tell it; and we feel nothing 
incongruous in such rapid presentation, because 
we have learned to accept condensation as one 
of the necessities of stage life, just as we have 
learned to accept pasteboard trees and a velvet 
drop curtain. 

In real life we do not act physically with such 
expedition, and least of all do we react psycho- 
logically with such instantaneousness. A man 
disgraces his family, and it is not the first shock 
that is the most tragic ; it is the slow gnawing years 
of realization. A great happiness comes to you, 
and the first minute after you hear the glad news 
you feel very much as you did the minute before. 
But an hour after, or a day, or a month after, 
you begin to appreciate what it all means. Time 
is the great interpreter. You are suffering now 
for the act of impulse of long ago ; you are com- 
ing into peace as the result of past sacrifice. Just 
as the beneficial result of an operation is not 
felt the moment the patient comes out of the 
ether, but is increasingly recognized as strength 
returns, so the soreness of any trial must wear 
( 239 ) 



Our Common Road 



away before the true nature of the trial is un- 
derstood. 

But most of us are so impatient. We try once 
and expect an immediate answer. We try again, 
maybe three times, and then when nothing hap- 
pens we conclude that it is not worth while; 
like the little boy whom his younger brother 
saw get into bed without kneeling to say his 
prayers. " Ain't you goin' to say your prayers? " 
he asked, awe-stricken. "Naw," retorted the 
small skeptic. "An' I didn't say 'em last night, 
an' I ain't goin' to say 'em to-morrer night. 
An' then if nothin' happens I ain't never goin' 
to say 'em again." So many of us try to gauge 
results as quickly as the small boy. We forget 
that what is coming to us now is the fruit of 
the seed we planted long before, and that the 
fruit of this present action will not come into 
maturity for many days. 

There is a great deal said about the subcon- 
scious nowadays, and even the simplest of us 
have come to think that there is something in 
the theory that if we register an earnest wish 
in our hearts it may some day work itself out. 
( 2 40 ) 



Our Common Road 



Time will tell you to-morrow the answer to the 
question you are asking to-day, but to-day it 
will tell you the answer to the question you 
asked yesterday. You cannot know it as soon 
as you ask it, nor can you act upon it the 
moment you know it. 

Human life is not stage life; human affairs 
run slowly, and it is only after many days that 
their secret is understood. The actor is rarely 
put upon the stage who is one of the leading 
characters in the drama of daily life. He carries 
the keys; he knows the answer; and brings in 
the returns. Time alone can tell. 

<* 3 * 

WHEN THE EXPECTED HAPPENS 

In that most remarkable of modern novels, 
"The Old Wives' Tale," Sophia, in looking 
back over her many years, reflects, " My life 
has been so queer — and yet every part of it 
separately seemed ordinary enough " ; and cer- 
tainly the same reflection has come to each of 
us as one by one the experiences we thought 

( 241 ) 



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were going to be so tremendous prove to be 
simple, natural affairs when they actually arrive. 
A group of school girls get together and dis- 
cuss their futures with heart-searching earnest- 
ness: the kind of men they are going to marry, 
the marvelous way they will train their children, 
the faultless homes they will keep. Only it all 
seems incredible, impossible, wonderful, myste- 
rious. And when they grow up, they marry men 
who appear to the unprejudiced very like other 
men, and have children who, fortunately, are 
not paragons of any sort, and live in houses that 
are comfortable and pleasant, but not extraor- 
dinary in any way. There is nothing so strange 
and incomprehensible about any of it. It seems 
perfectly natural and commonplace, which does 
not mean that they are not as happy as they 
thought they would be, but only that they are 
happy in a different way. They expected a king 
in a great procession down a wide avenue, and 
they found that their guest came quietly by the 
garden gate, and was just a homelike person 
like themselves. Some romantic natures may 
be disappointed at the lack of spectacular events 
( 24 2 ) 



Our Common Road 



in their lives, but most of us find that things 
turn out so much better than we thought we 
would like them to turn out, that we are very- 
grateful. Contrast some of the crude ideas of 
happiness you cherished when you were thir- 
teen with some of the deep and mellow expe- 
riences that have actually occurred, and you 
will see as much more beauty in the latter as in 
the contrast between a soft print and a flaming 
chromo. 

Just as joys are diffused with the natural ele- 
ment, so sorrows are softened and mitigated by 
the simple processes of every day. If nothing 
is quite so dazzling to the woman of sixty as she 
had hoped when she was a girl of sixteen, neither 
is anything so terrible as she had feared. 

The way that life comes to us is the most in- 
teresting to us. The trifling events of every day 
make up the great sweep of a human career, 
and one can see how curiously things fitted into 
each other and led to this and to that ; how the 
unexpected was sometimes dramatic, and some- 
times funny, but that the strangest of all and 
the funniest and the most magnificent was the 
( 2 43 ) 



Our Common Road 



way the expected looked when it finally did 
arrive. 

We need not be afraid of terrible crises sud- 
denly confronting us, for when we approach 
them we find they can be handled quite easily. 
We need not stand overcome before the thought 
of the importance of some piece of work which 
we have undertaken, or be filled with fear at the 
seriousness of any complication that faces us. If 
we go ahead in a simple, matter-of-fact fash- 
ion, we shall find that it was not so incredibly 
difficult, but very like the experiences of every 
day. 

And it is only when it is all over that we may 
pause, like Sophia, and realize how wonderful it 
has been. 

<& 4 e> 

CHANGES 

We are so apt to think that when something 
has changed it has, therefore, utterly gone. We 
are like children who do not recognize an old 
friend if she comes in a new dress. 

A household of boys and girls grows into a 
( 244 ) 



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household of young men and women, and one 
by one the young men go away from home, 
the girls marry, and in due course of time 
the house, which used to be all turbulence and 
cheerful racket, settles down into orderly se- 
renity. In the hall where there was once a pile of 
caps and doll carriages and fishing-tackle and 
baseballs, and the sound of young voices and the 
vibrations of young feet, there is a clean-swept 
table with a neat card plate, and in the corner 
the clock ticks placidly — quite audible now in 
the quietness. 

" It is all gone — the merry old home," croaks 
the casual visitor as she mournfully surveys the 
changed scenes, but the wise woman who made 
the home smiles. She knows that change is not 
dissolution ; that the house is home as much as 
it ever was. She remembers when, thirty years 
ago, "home" meant just two of them. And 
then it came to mean a small son too, and then 
a baby sister, and finally a whole tribe of young- 
sters. And yet it was always "home." And 
now the children are going away, one by one, 
and father and mother are left, just as they were 

( 245 ) 



Our Common Road 



thirty years ago, and it is still "home." The 
present is as much a part of the home as was 
the past; change is life in a different form, not 
a cessation of life. 

Your friendship with another is broken, but 
you need not, therefore, sweep her off your books 
forever. A pleasant acquaintanceship may spring 
up — a pleasanter acquaintanceship than your 
friendship ever was. Your relationship has 
changed, but it is not necessarily obliterated. 

"Youth never believes that it will live to 
compromise," says Leonard Merrick, but this 
is the inevitable lesson which youth must learn. 
You do not mourn when the snow melts and 
the green fields appear. The season changes, 
but the earth is beautiful in another guise. It 
is only where lands are that are frozen and dead 
that no change ever alters the scene. 

Change is a sign of life, of progress. What 
comes is frequently much better than what goes. 
There is no experience which is so great that it 
sweeps everything before it; when it passes 
there is always something left. Take that some- 
thing which is left, and know that it is as real 
( 246 ) 



Our Common Road 



as what has passed. It may be different, and in 
that case remember that it is only another room 
in the house of life. But you may find that it 
is not so very different, after all, but only your 
old friend in another dress. 

« 5 • 

DREAMS 

There are waking dreams and sleeping dreams; 
and beautiful as the visions may be which float 
through our slumbers, yet they are not so dear 
to us as those wonders which we half-imagine 
and half-dare to hope. The dreams of slumber 
are unguided and chaotic; the dreams of hope 
are shepherded by our hearts. 

In unconscious dreams we may see sights and 
hear sounds unlike any which we have ever seen 
or heard ; but in daydreams it is always some 
sight which we remember, only a thousand times 
more lovely, some voice which we have heard, 
only a thousand times more beautiful. Uncon- 
scious dreams are like a child's torn scrapbook, 
made up of hundreds of bits; but dreams of hope 
( 2 47 ) 



Our Common Road 



are like soap-bubbles, created by a fond wish, 
and blown upwards by eager fancy. 

We like to think that our dreams are our 
own. No one may enter into them ; no one may 
destroy them ; no matter what happens in the 
world of events, we fan always imagine a Happy 
Valley and be wafted thither by only a desire. 
But there is a secret about dreams; you may 
think you can build an air castle by only closing 
your lids, but you cannot. Visions are not born in 
the eyes, but in the heart. Your dreams spring 
from you, from your innermost nature, from 
your deepest desires. The only dreamland you 
can enter is the dreamland of your fashioning. 
Your aspirations, your emotions, your love of 
what is beautiful or what is true, color and shape 
even the faintest and farthest of your fancies. 

Do you ever wonder what your dog is think- 
ing about as he wistfully turns his brave brown 
eyes up to you ? Do you ever wonder what is 
passing through the brain of a mischievous crow 
or disdainful pussy or solemn-eyed child ? They 
cannot tell us, but we may be sure that the dog's 
mind only creates or recalls images which appeal 

{ 248 ) 



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to a dog, and the child's mind only things which 
appeal to a child. 

So it is with us. The brutish man cannot 
create an angelic dreamland, the shallow woman 
is denied poignant emotions even in her imagina- 
tion. You cannot coin anything, even a dream, 
except out of the material which you possess. 
Only those visions are visible which our eyes 
are able to see; only those harmonies can reach 
us which our ears are attuned to hear. For 
dreams are a part of life, and glow or dwindle 
with the pulse of our actual living and think- 
ing. 

Daydreams — a fairyland even for those whose 
years make fairyland seem far away ; a treasure 
house of plenty for those who are starved — all 
who will may have their dreams. But although 
your imaginings may hold wonders infinitely 
lovelier than those which you have seen with your 
eyes or touched with your hand, yet they can 
hold nothing which is foreign to your nature. 
Your dreamland tree may bear blossoms far 
out of your reach, but its root is always in your 
heart. 

( 2 49 ) 



Our Common Road 



<e 6 #> 

A SENSE OF PROPORTION 

Have you never, when you were fishing in 
summer, or poring over some natural history 
book in winter, come across the curious spectacle 
of a large fish with a small fish inside him? And 
perhaps the small fish had a still smaller one 
inside of him, and so on even to four or five? 
And did it not always strike you as a strange 
and almost uncanny phenomenon ? And maybe, 
long after, did this simile occur to you? — 

A woman lives a trivial, limited life, as so 
many of us do, her time devoted to small wor- 
ries, small vanities, small concerns, and she 
thinks herself very busy, and very much in 
earnest and very anxious over what seem the 
important events of existence. And then, some 
day, suddenly, a great and terrible calamity falls 
upon her; the earth splits open before her feet; 
the heavens crash; all creation lies shattered — 
desolated — violated. She thinks it is the end 
of everything, but it is not the end. By and by 
she crawls out from under the wreck — because 
( 2 5o ) 



Our Common Road 



the impulse of self-preservation is instinctive — 
and begins to pull her days together again. And 
as she surveys the vast change, she no longer 
sees the smaller worries and frettings and per- 
plexities of old times. They are swallowed up 
— lost completely — in this larger realization 
either of joy or sorrow. So it is with all emo- 
tions; the great swallows up the small, just as 
the great fish swallows up the little fish. 

And this is why men and women who have 
had really significant experiences are usually 
broader, less petty, more genuine, than those 
whose lives have been too closely sheltered. 
Poor people are frequently more interesting and 
more original and sincere than those who have 
never been poor. The absolute necessity of 
fighting for one's daily bread is a great and a 
grim fact, and those who face it face unadorned 
reality. Most men possess those sturdier qual- 
ities which many women lack; the women may 
have exactly the same capacity for wide outlook, 
but it has never been given the same oppor- 
tunity. 

Every experience helps us to shape our sense 

( *s* ) 



Our Common Road 



of proportion: the woman whose only aim is to 
appear charming will worry acutely over the set 
of her hat; the woman who is running for the 
doctor does not know whether she has a hat on 
or not. 

All of this affects our attitude toward other 
people as well; people of wide experience are 
broader in their view of the failings and accom- 
plishments of others, than are those whose lives 
have been narrowly safe and uneventful, because 
experience develops a sense of proportion. But 
although experience is the best teacher, imagina- 
tion is not to be despised. You have lost your 
train, or some one has broken an engagement, 
or you could not find the material you wanted 
to match? Think how instantly such trifles 
would dwindle into insignificance if some real, 
sudden, and sharp problem which had its roots 
in your very life suddenly confronted you ! Why 
must we wait for huge and terrible misfortunes 
to give us a sense of proportion ? Why not use 
our imaginations a little to shake events into 
their proper relative values and to gain a nobler 
vision of life? 

( 2 52 ) 



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<& 7 6> 
THE THOUGHT AND THE DEED 

Nearly all actions that materialize are formu- 
lated first in thought. There are, of course, in- 
stances when our bodies seem to act of their own 
volition ; and the man who jumps for his life and 
the child who dodges a falling brick are obeying 
instincts that have roots in something deeper 
than individual consciousness. But in the ordi- 
nary events of life did you ever stop to think 
that before you actually perform a task you usu- 
ally picture it, completed? It may be merely 
the letter you ought to write and do not want 
to write, but you continually think of the relief 
it will be when it is posted. Or it may be some 
larger thing: you may be working for success 
along some particular line, and always before 
you as a mirage — but unlike most mirages in 
that it is indestructible — floats the vision of 
what you desire. It is the mind which goes first; 
it is the mind which pushes back the branches 
so that the body can follow. 

And since it is the mind which prepares the 
( 2 53 ) 



Our Common Road 



way, is it not easier, instead of holding back our 
bodies or our words or our impulses after they 
have started upon some course which we know 
we must check, to begin a moment earlier and 
control the course of the thought? The boy in 
school would not glance at his desk-mate's paper 
if before he glanced he had not thought of how 
easy it would be to cheat — that no one would 
see ; that it really did not matter. His mind goes 
first — it prepares a way, and then the action 
follows. There is something wonderfully in- 
sidious about the process of a thought; like 
the tiny stream that gathers incredible vol- 
ume and velocity as it progresses, so even the 
slenderest thread of thought swells out into 
an enormous cable — a cable for either good 
or ill. 

Is there some weakness in your character 
which you would overcome? Then do not wait 
until you are on the verge of omitting or com- 
mitting the fault. Begin before you get to that 
point, and keep your thought from working in 
that direction, or deliberately turn it in another 
direction. All other ways are doubly hard, and 

( 254) 



Our Common Road 



although they are not exactly comparable to 
locking the stable door after the horse has been 
stolen, yet they suggest the attempt to stop him 
after he has the first advantage of headway. 

The mind always goes first; direct your 
thoughts, and your actions will seem to direct 
themselves. That is one of the secrets of strength. 

<# 8 s> 

RECOGNITION AND REVELATION 

What we plan to do and then execute delib- 
erately is indicative of our character and intel- 
ligence; what we do instinctively is indicative 
of our nature and our knowledge. You enter a 
room, look about it, study its proportions, its 
furnishings, its color-scheme and details, and 
after due examination pronounce it in good taste. 
But to step into a room and tell immediately 
whether it is in good taste or bad shows that 
your cultivation has passed from the realm of 
a conscious effort into that of unconscious com- 
prehension. 

This is one of the reasons why a person's 

( 255 ) 



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sense of humor is peculiarly characteristic. 
Laughter comes swiftly, before we have time to 
think; we laugh at what we feel is funny, not 
at what we think ought to be. Thus whoever 
laughs at vulgarity or sees the suggestiveness in 
an innuendo betrays innate vulgarity, and the 
one who responds to swift, delicate satire reveals 
subtlety and nice intelligence. 

The woman who has climbed high in society 
and obliterated all traces of her former common 
associates and associations may spoil her calcu- 
lations by the startled recognition of some per- 
son, place, or thing which she would never know 
existed if she were what she pretends to be — a 
genuine aristocrat. 

People who talk a great deal about life show 
how much it has been talk and how little expe- 
rience when they come face to face with some 
real situation; for the sentimentalist cannot dis- 
tinguish between sincere grief and maudlin un- 
happiness, between deep emotion and hysterical 
excitement, between serious change of resolution 
and mere caprice. And the very fact that he 
does not recognize the difference immediately 

( 256 ) 



Our Common Road 



shows that he is only a sentimentalist, and not 
one who has lived vitally. 

There are two kinds of instinct, — primitive 
and acquired ; the first makes you wink your 
eyes when some object flashes too close to 
them; this is the result of long centuries of 
such reaction. The second makes you rise to 
your feet when an old person enters your pres- 
ence; this is the result of years of home training 
and seeing mannerly people. 

Detectives are quick to discover their victims 
through the involuntary response to certain 
suggestions. A woman who is masquerading as 
a man has more than once been caught by some 
one asking her for a pin, and instead of her fin- 
gers going to the lapel of her coat, where a man 
would put a stray pin, they rise to the front — 
for a woman naturally thrusts a pin through the 
front of her bodice. When Huckleberry Finn 
was in girl's petticoats and an apple was tossed 
him, he clapped his knees together man fashion, 
instead of spreading them to make a lap, woman 
fashion, and thus he gave himself away. 

It is the little things which we do without 
( 257 ) 



Our Common Road 



thinking that tell the story of what we really 
are. What we recognize reveals what we know, 
and such revelation is more true than the 
most elaborate explanations, or the most abject 
confessions. 

<$ 9 S> 

FORGOTTEN CHRISTMAS WORKERS 

We hear so much about the shopgirl who faints 
with exhaustion behind the Christmas counter, 
and the postman who breaks his back under the 
Christmas mail, and the expressman who catches 
pneumonia upon the Christmas delivery wagon, 
that most of us with any sensibilities whatever 
feel a proper twinge of conscience if we do our 
shopping later than ten o'clock, or say " Send 
it, please," to any package smaller than a piano. 

Such compunctions are extremely salutary, 
and if we did have our Christmas photographs 
taken last August so as to help relieve the 
Christmas stress, we can be sure that our coun- 
tenances look more serene than if we had waited 
until Christmas week. 

The "Shop Early" signs and the "Shop 
( 258 ) 



Our Common Road 



Early " movement have been godsends to the 
city and its workers, and many of us have learned 
that to try to save the strength of others has 
meant in the end saving our own. There is a 
worker, however, that many of us have quite 
forgotten, and this worker is one of the faith- 
fulest. 

Stand on the street corner — no, do not stand 
on any street corner this busy season, but stand 
in some doorway niche for a few minutes and 
watch the horses. See those great, handsome 
beasts, with their gleaming necks and noble 
backs, pulling at that huge truck. They are 
splendidly cared for and so full of power that 
when they throw their weight forward we want 
to applaud with admiration. We can waste no 
pity on them. 

That cab horse, with his small, well-formed 
head and wobbly knees, waiting for the hurry- 
ing Christmas shopper, has a pathetically genteel 
air ; he reminds one of a fine gentleman who 
has fallen upon hard times, but still wears a 
flower in his shabby buttonhole and greets his 
acquaintance with jaunty elegance. 
( 2 59 ) 



Our Common Road 



This poor, thin creature rattling down the 
street with a lad twitching at the reins and 
flicking a tattered whip, with a noisy cart bang- 
ing behind — his breath comes in sharp gasps 
that fall unpleasantly upon our delicate ears, 
and we are relieved when he clatters out of 
sight. 

And this almost solid phalanx of overdriven 
beasts backing their heavy loads up to the de- 
livery doors, and standing motionless with the 
rain beating upon their patient foreheads as the 
loads are piled up and up — soon they will re- 
spond to the touch of the rein and start off" 
wearily and uncomplainingly for their long, 
hard pull. 

Now and then we see a wreck of a horse 
staggering pitifully forward, with his knees 
trembling and his eyes staring and full of pain. 
We quickly avert our eyes as he stumbles and 
falls in a strange, awkward heap that will not 
stir again for all the shouting and angry blows. 

The horses in the city — the horses every- 
where — that are driven hard for many days 
and late into the night so that our Christmases 
( 260 ) 



Our Common Road 



may be happy — watch them for five minutes 
and remember that it is not the driver who is 
responsible for the heavy loads and the long 
hours. 

It is you who are responsible: you, because 
you have allowed yourself to say absently with 
the purchase of every bundle, " Send it, please" ; 
you, because you have waited until the last 
minute before completing your shopping; you, 
because you crowd the streets and stop on the 
crossing to change your mind, causing the driver 
to pull up his horse so suddenly and so vio- 
lently that it makes you cringe. 

Look at the horses as they pass you, and 
think for a moment what compassion means, 
and remember that mercy is still one of the 
most beautiful of the virtues. 

<a IO ■&) 
WHEN CHRISTMAS SEEMS SAD TO YOU 

We always like to think of Christmas as being 
the merriest season in all the livelong year. We 
love the pictures of it that have laughing chil- 

( 261 ) 



Our Common Road 



dren and golden bells and bright sprays of holly, 
and all our Christmas rhymes are happy ones. 
And yet to many people these Christmas days 
are sadder than any other days can ever be. 

The sight of the laurel that will decorate 
some joyful room is like a stab to one who 
last year was helping wind the long glossy ropes 
around the mantel at home, and who, this year, 
stares across the empty cheerlessness of a board- 
ing-house chamber. The sound of Christmas 
carols is fraught with indescribable pain for those 
who will never hear again those voices that they 
loved more than anything else in all the world. 

In every home where the circle is broken, 
this Christmas will be different from other 
Christmases ; the candles will not burn so brightly 
for all the trimming, and the trees this year 
have lost their spicy perfume. In the memories 
of other Christmases this one seems smaller, 
less wonderful, less radiant. 

Christmas will not seem the same to you this 

year? It will lack something — someone? Life 

has changed, and you are older, graver, than 

you were? To many of us Christmas will never 

( 262 ) 



Our Common Road 



be the same, but it will still be Christmas, and 
it may be more beautiful than before. 

Do not be afraid of Change : you can never 
tell what gifts she brings in her hands. Do you 
think grandmother, with her serene face and 
with the quiet peace enveloping her like a pale 
radiance, wishes that she were again a boisterous 
little girl whose day's happiness was spoiled if 
she ate too much pudding? And yet grand- 
mother has seen many Christmases — all differ- 
ent. 

She knows that those hilarious holidays when 
all the children were swarming through the 
house were happy, indeed. But she knows that 
on those Christmases when they were too far 
away to come home they all learned how far 
love can reach and how closely it can bind. 

And she knows, too, that which she felt 
would be a Christmas too sad and too lonely to 
be endured was full of a strange holiness more 
beautiful than mirth. 

Do not shrink from your Christmas. Here 
as at all times Change comes with pain, but 
brings with her most precious compensation. 

( 263 ) 



Our Common Road 



Christmas may no longer come to you like a 
jingling, red-cheeked Santa Claus, but perhaps 
that tall, straight figure that enters so quietly 
and seems so dark and somber may lift its veil 
of mystery and show you the face of an angel. 

<£ I I & 
ORIENTATION 

Nowadays it is the custom to travel inces- 
santly — that is, as incessantly as one's means 
will allow. Cosmopolitanism is the desideratum 
of thousands, and those who do not know what 
cosmopolitanism is are frankly restless. A symp- 
tom of this is the summer colony. Hundreds 
and hundreds of shoddy settlements are tossed 
together carelessly by seashore or mountain-side 
to shelter temporarily that vast transitory crowd 
of summer wanderers who shift ceaselessly from 
one end of the land to the other. Families that 
can afford it go abroad every year : the others 
go to a new spot every summer. 

While there is nothing more refreshing to 
grown people than change, it is an open specu- 

( 264 ) 



Our Common Road 



lation whether this continual perambulation is 
good for small children. 

When we are young we put out numberless 
tendrils of inquisitiveness, tendrils which after- 
ward become strong cables of association. Chil- 
dren naturally become fond of the place where 
they live,and this very fondness fosters loyalty,in- 
terest, and patriotism, the most splendid bases for 
future citizenship. It is of supreme importance 
to choose a home for children in some place of 
which they may always feel proud,and have those 
intimate and indissoluble associations of child- 
hood connected with some spot worthy of them. 

But what about the child who has no place 
he can call home? The wandering child? The 
summer colony child? The hotel child? His 
associations are a hasty and shallow jumble of 
cheap places and fine places, beautiful places 
and ugly places. He is like a ship without 
anchor — derelict. Little children flourish better 
without overmuch transplanting. A summer 
home and a winter home are quite enough for 
one small boy to love. Too many places and 
too many occupations are confusing. 

( 265 > 



Our Common Road 



Can you remember the house in the country, 
or by the seashore, where you went summer 
after summer, noting with eager eyes every 
trifling change? How tremendously important 
it was if a tree had been cut down or if a new 
house had been built. It is by such gradual 
living that we gain our sense of proportion : 
we grow up with the place, and this gives us 
poise and prospective. 

Grown people forget how sensitive and how 
slow in development is the mind of a little child. 
They heap on impression after impression until 
it is all a jumble and blur, while if he were left 
alone to grow up quietly with the flowers and 
the chickens, he would gradually formulate his 
ideas and gain his view of life from some one 
steady angle. 

It is only after one is surely orientated that 
travel and change mean much, for true cosmo- 
politanism is based upon true appreciation, and 
true appreciation is of slow growth. 

Give the children a chance. Let them be 
firmly anchored before the hurly-burly of life 
seizes them. The same old farm year after year, 
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Our Common Road 



or the same old beach or camp, is better for the 
small boy than all the wonders of Europe. 

<a 12 * 

RUNNING AROUND 

It is extraordinary how much time may be 
wasted in running around; not running any- 
where in particular, or for any specific purpose, 
but in just moving about enough to break up 
the continuity of any task. Nowhere is this 
truer than in a house, and of the average home 
woman. She sits down to sew, for instance, and 
the doorbell rings. There is no maid, or if 
there is one, she does not answer. The sewing 
is put down, the door answered, the sewing re- 
sumed, and suddenly she remembers something 
she forgot to tell cook. The sewing is dropped; 
cook is interviewed, the sewing resumed. The 
telephone rings — another break — another pick- 
ing-up of the work. Now the sewing continues 
for several minutes, and then the postman comes. 
After reading the mail it occurs to her to answer 
a certain letter. Where is the ink ? At last it is 
( 267 ) 



Our Common Road 



found. But halfway through the letter the cat 
mews to be let in. The letter is left, and on the 
return trip she catches a glimpse of herself in 
the mirror. How untidy her hair is ! She pauses 
at the bureau to rearrange it, and a few inciden- 
tal delays ensue. On the way back to the desk 
something passing in the street catches her eye, 
and she stands at the window for several minutes 
watching. Probably another trip to the kitchen, 
a few minutes idling over a magazine that catches 
her eye — not exactly reading, but standing and 
glancing through it. And so on and on through- 
out the whole broken-up, jumbled, and unsatis- 
factory day: nothing accomplished; a dozen 
half-attempted and unfinished tasks; and an 
evening bringing neither the healthy sense of 
exercise nor yet of rest. The entire day has been 
nothing but a series of aimless jumpings-up 
and sittings-down, of hurrying from one trifling 
thing to another. She is disgusted, and she 
should be, with such an existence. It is a dis- 
grace to any intelligent being. Interruptions 
there must be, but the reason that she is flurry- 
ing is not because she is interrupted, but because 

( 268 ) 



Our Common Road 



she is unsystematic. It is perfectly possible to 
tell cook everything at one time ; to make a 
complete toilet and let it last until time to 
change ; to do all one's street-gazing when one 
is out for a walk, and to answer all one's letters 
when the requisite paraphernalia is assembled. 

No one has yet been able to reduce house- 
keeping to an exact science, but surely some 
women could come a little nearer it by using 
their heads to save their heels. The telephone 
is a nuisance, we must admit, but how many 
women would economize on something else and 
have an extension put in on the second floor, 
and save three or four minutes every half-hour? 
No time for outdoor exercise, no time to read, 
no time for anything. Only time to run up and 
down, and in and out, and around and about, 
hour after hour and day after day. 

What a salutary effect it might have if, every 
time we were tempted to say, " I have n't time 
for this or that," we confessed, " I have n't brains 
to keep any time for living. I spend it all in 
running around." 



( 269 ) 



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«& 13* 

THE TOP OF THE TABLE 

Did you ever think, when you see a group 
of people together, that besides the individual 
life of each person there is the individuality of 
the group ? 

If you go down into the active business parts 
of the city and see the people hurrying to and 
fro, you may notice the separate faces, but prob- 
ably you will get an impression of a certain class 
of men pursuing a certain kind of occupation. 
This impression is due to them all, and yet it is 
something besides a compilation of single im- 
pressions, just as a cake is something besides 
eggs and sugar and butter and milk. Go down 
into the poor, squalid, and more picturesque 
streets, and see what an impression of mingled 
gayety and poverty floods in upon you. And 
yet, if you take a single individual, you do not 
find him particularly gay, or, maybe, particularly 
poverty-stricken. By mob consciousness we 
generally mean an emotional state attained by 
a group of people, and this state is on a lower 
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Our Common Road 



intellectual level than the intellectual level of 
any single member of the group. The point is, 
that whenever we get together for any purpose 
we each bring our own personality, and then as 
a group we build up a personality which is dif- 
ferent from that of any one. 

It is startling when we realize for the first 
time that besides our personal lives we all have 
our share in the general life. You cannot do 
anything by yourself. Every action you perform 
is like a pebble dropped into a pool and sending 
out increasing circles. You can never tell where 
the circles will break, or what they will move 
in their course. Your life, whether you rebel 
under the reflection or not, is inextricably inter- 
woven with the lives of every one else, and what 
you are affects not only your own personality, 
but the personality of every group with which 
you come in contact. If you are like a crooked 
leg, the top of the table which you help uphold 
will not be level. 

Just as the casual word is sometimes more 
indicative of the speaker than all his prepared 
remarks, so the effect we have upon any group 
( 2 7i ) 



Our Common Road 



is sometimes more indicative of our natures than 
the effect we have alone. 

You may find that thinking about this influ- 
ence is very gratifying. You may find it depress- 
ing. In either case it will be rather solemn. 
But it is a salutary thing to do occasionally — to 
wonder if you are helping to hold the top of the 
table level. 

<& 14 -8> 

TWO POINTS OF VIEW 

We were looking at a new house which, as 
yet, seemed rather bare and uncompleted. "I 
suppose," said the gentleman who was telling 
about it, "that all you see are the things which 
are n't done yet. What we see is how much has 
been done." And thus he stated the fundamental 
difference between two points of view. 

Some people naturally think of the original 
state from which anything has emerged, while 
others, just as naturally, think of the ideal state 
toward which everything is tending. They are 
radically different points of view, and there is a 
place for both of them. 

( 272 ) 



Our Common Road 



When you are looking at the work of another 
person, if you first think of how much he has 
accomplished since he began you will genuinely 
admire his efforts, and be as genuinely charitable 
toward his shortcomings. If you ask a maid to 
clean a room which has not been cleaned for 
twenty years, you do not expect the same result 
as if you had asked her to dust a room which 
was thoroughly swept yesterday. You think of 
the original condition of the room when you 
say, " How well it looks." And that is the only 
fair way to think of other people's achievements. 

But in regard to our own achievements — that 
is different. The one thing to keep constantly 
in mind when you start any task of your own 
is what you wish to do, not what you have al- 
ready done. If you are picking berries, and after 
you have gathered a cupful you sit down and 
contemplate how much more a cupful is than 
nothing at all, you will have no berries for sup- 
per. But if you keep manfully at it, holding 
before your mind the vision, not of a cupful, 
but two quarts or three, then you will fare well 
at supper that night. 

( 273 ) 



Our Common Road 



But to apply the same rule to the work of 
others — particularly in serious issues — is too 
discouraging, both for them and for ourselves. 
This is not an ideal world, and if we recognize 
nothing but the ideal we will lose much that is 
good. Every step that is made toward perfec- 
tion is a beautiful step, and in order to get 
the full value of that beauty you must bear in 
mind the first state of progress as well as the 
last. 

When it is our task and not that of others, 
then the great incentive, the sure preventive 
for conceit, the guide to show the way, is to 

<< Think of the end of the work, contrast 
The petty done, and the undone vast." 

These are two points of view, and they both 
have their illuminating application. 

<$ 15 e> 

DEALING WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE 

cc I have had to live with some one who is 
so disagreeable that she kills all my pleasure." 
" Circumstances force me to associate constantly 
( 2 74 ) 



Our Common Road 



with a person who cherishes the most absurd 
grudges." " My mother is so supersensitive that 
I am continually offending her. What shall I 
do?" Some of these problems or their like 
come to us all at times, and while each individ- 
ual case requires its peculiar treatment, yet there 
are certain principles that apply to all. 

If you are obliged to deal with some one who 
is hateful or tricky or uncongenial, % there are 
two ways of going through it. Do you wish to 
use her own weapons against her ? Are you going 
to meet jealousy with envy, sullenness with 
sourness, conceit with pride, and stubbornness 
with obstinacy? If you are, the conflict resolves 
itself down to which of you has the more 
endurance, and then the laurels go to the 
victor. 

If, however, you really believe that kindness 
is more effective than unkindness, that honesty 
is more powerful than craftiness, and hopefulness 
truer than cynicism — then gather up your forces 
and go into fair and open conflict with your 
opponent. If you live with a person who carries 
a perpetual chip on her shoulder, your only 
( 2 75 ) 



Our Common Road 



method of getting along with her — unless you 
decide to carry bigger chips on both your own, 
and so beat her at her own game — is to lift 
yourself out of the region of all grudges and 
malice, and deliberately refuse to be annoyed by 
her. Then you are absolved from any possibil- 
ity of conflict. A dragonfly cannot sting the 
sun. And no one can hurt you if your power 
for sweetness is stronger than hers for hateful- 
ness. 

The trouble with so many so-called "good" 
people is that they have no force. If they would 
put half the energy into being constructive that 
an active mischief-maker puts into being de- 
structive, we should see more justice in the 
world. But many a woman is agreeable only 
because it is pleasanter than being disagreeable. 
She is simply good-natured because she prefers 
to avoid rows. And then when a vitalized per- 
sonality determined to gain its own ends comes 
along and runs over the "agreeable" one, the 
latter is apt to feel in a hazy sort of way that 
she has been unjustly treated. She has been 
treated exactly as she deserved. Her obliging 
( 276 ) 



Our Common Road 



ways were merely the result of a good digestion 
and propitious circumstances, and went down, 
quite naturally, under the first real strain. 

But a woman whose good qualities are based 
upon the rock bed of principle is an irresistible 
force. If she honestly believes that right is 
stronger than wrong and exercises to its utmost 
capacity her power for right, she will ultimately 
carry the day in triumph over the heads of 
the bickerers, the slanderers, and the cowards. 
Grudges and maliciousness and petty faultfind- 
ing cannot exist in the atmosphere of a strong, 
sweet, radiant personality, any more than can 
the chill, clinging mist persist under the power- 
ful and warming rays of the sun. It is only the 
half-filled, ill-trimmed, and flickering lamp that 
seems to make the mist cling more closely. 

Be as positive in your virtue as your oppo- 
nent is in her vice. Make your disagreeable 
companion more happy than she makes you 
unhappy — that is your way to win. Haven't 
you as much faith in your weapons as she has 
in hers? 



( 277 ) 



Our Common Road 



<$ 16 s> 

CLEAN MARY AND DIRTY JANE 

Every one who has ever had anything to do 
with children, from the professional kindergarten 
teacher to the casual volunteer in a settlement, 
has found herself at some time confronted by 
this situation: — 

The children have been told to take hands 
and form a ring for circle play. They obediently 
follow directions, the circle seems practically 
complete, and the game is about to start, when 
suddenly there is rebellion in the ranks. Clean 
little Mary refuses to take the hand of dirty 
little Jane, and the game cannot go on properly 
without them. What is the instructor to do? 
To make clean Mary take dirty Jane's hand is 
to outrage Mary's sense of the proprieties; to 
force Jane to wash her hands fills Mary with a 
sense of her own importance and superiority. 
Now it may be that Mary's immaculateness is 
due to no virtue of hers, and that Jane's grime 
is quite beyond her own control — it is not al- 
ways easy or even possible to keep scrubbed 

( 278 ) 



Our Common Road 



with five in a single room. Of course, ultimately, 
Jane must be taught to be clean, and Mary 
must be taught to be kind, and when that happy 
condition is reached there will be no further 
problem. But as the matter now stands it is 
perplexing. 

Clean Mary and dirty Jane stay in society to 
trouble us long after the years of circle play. A 
woman in your town does something which of- 
fends your taste or your standards. Will you 
ostracize her, thus throwing your own blame- 
lessness into higher relief? or will you accept 
her, thus, in a way, sanctioning her behavior? 
Or, even if you are confident in your power to 
accept her without it hurting you, what will you 
advise others to do ? and will you invite them 
to meet her at your house? In other words, you 
may be willing to take the hand of dirty Jane, 
but will you force Mary, who may, perhaps, 
only have achieved cleanliness herself after great 
effort, to take the hand and act as if it were of 
no importance? It is a more responsible busi- 
ness to decide for others than merely to take a 
chance ourselves. 

( 279 ) 



Our Common Road 



We meet them again and again, these con- 
flicting two, under various guises. Will you 
force your competent, ill-tempered waitress to 
work with an incompetent but well-meaning 
and faithful chambermaid? Or will you turn 
away the latter, trusting to some one with more 
charity and patience to train her into a valuable 
servant? Just what are the rights of each? 

There has, as yet, been no unassailable solu- 
tion to the problem of clean Mary and dirty 
Jane. Perhaps the teacher endowed with great 
tact might persuade Mary to help Jane wash 
the offending hands, and to do it in such a way 
that Jane should not be discouraged with her 
sense of inferiority nor Mary unduly elated with 
a sense of priggishness. 

And, in the mean while, what happens to the 
rest of the children, waiting for their circle play? 

PAYING THE PRICE 

We all admit in a general way that we have 
to pay the price for whatever we have. We tell 
( 28 ° ) 



Our Common Road 



the children that they cannot eat their cake and 
have it too, and promptly bewail the fact that 
we cannot do two things at once or be in more 
than one place at a time. 

Can you not think of some woman you know 
who is an excellent housekeeper, a sympathetic 
wife, and a wise mother, yet who occasionally 
laments that she is not brilliant, that she has so 
little time for travel, or that she never gets a 
chance to read anything? She looks with some- 
thing like envy at some academic friend who is 
either unmarried or childless, and who is trav- 
eled and alert and well up in the world of letters 
and current events. The first woman does not 
want to give up her children — no, indeed; only 
she wishes she could have all that she has and 
all that the other woman has too. That is not 
only eating your cake and wanting it, besides, 
but looks like wanting to eat some one else's 
cake as well. The academic woman, the great ac- 
tress, the successful singer — each has earned her 
happiness and paid for it with a coin from her 
heart. The mother has earned hers, and part of 
the price of either lot was relinquishing the other, 

( 281 ) 



Our Common Road 



The woman who works for a living, either 
from necessity or choice, enjoying one of the 
most durable of life's satisfactions, — the satis- 
faction of congenial labor, — cannot be a work- 
ing-woman and a social success at the same 
time. There are compensations for working, 
but there is a price to pay as well. It shows a 
plucky spirit to accept the first with pleasure and 
pay the second without complaint. 

You cannot have it all. If you do your 
Christmas shopping early, you will save your 
nerves, but you may not have the excitement 
of the last minute. It is simply which method 
you prefer. Both roads have their good points, 
and both have their tolls. 

You have not learned to sew, because when 
other girls were sewing you were sailing. Now 
you can sail a boat, but your sartorial inefficiency 
is part of the price you pay for that knowledge. 
Was it worth it? That is a different question. 

You may pay out five years of your life to 
learn some trade or to embark on some ad- 
venture, and at the end of the five years you 
may find that you made an unwise choice. That 

( 282) 



Our Common Road 



is a pity, but you have eaten your cake, and 
now you cannot have it again. It was unfortu- 
nate that you discovered that it was the wrong 
cake after you had consumed it instead of be- 
fore. The best thing to do now is to find an- 
other confection. 

Make up your mind what you want to do 
or what circumstances compel you to do, then 
go ahead, remembering that part of the price 
we must pay for traveling in one direction, 
whether we choose the route or whether it is 
chosen for us, is that we cannot be traveling at 
the same time in another. 

<& 18 * 

TOO BUSY 

Too busy to come — too busy to stay — too 
busy to go — busy, busy, busy — that is the 
slogan of the modern woman ! Too busy to 
write letters — too busy to see her friends — 
too busy to read anything — too busy to do any- 
thing but gasp. Strange, is n't it, that with all the 
conveniences of up-to-date living we are busier 

( 283 ) 



Our Common Road 



than we ever were before? The woman who 
lights her gas stove with the touch of a match 
is busier than her grandmother who had to build 
a wood fire and keep it going. The mother 
with a sewing-machine and bargain sales is busier 
than the mother who made all her own clothes 
by hand, as well as those of her sons and 
daughters. 

This modern mania of busy-ness reduces us 
to the ignominious rank of breathless, terrified 
little squirrels racing round and round in their 
whirling cages. 

To say you are busy is a phrase that has come 
to mean absolutely nothing. One woman runs 
her house economically and well; she brings up 
her children wisely, is an agreeable companion 
to her husband, takes time to read and study 
and keep up with the times, runs in to see her 
friends and remembers them when she does not 
see them. She is a busy woman. Another wo- 
man, who has no house, no children, no husband, 
no profession, rushes frantically from morning 
until night, and falls, exhausted, with nervous 
prostration, at the end of the season, and the 

( 284 ) 



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doctors tell her that she has been too busy. To 
formulate any standard of busy-ness is certainly 
puzzling: a cat is busy when she is washing her 
face; the President of the United States is busy 
when he is making a tour of the country; evi- 
dently there is no possible scale of comparison, 
sliding or fixed. 

What a relief it would be if we eliminated 
the word "busy" from our vocabularies. If we 
would rather do something else, if we have to 
do something else, if we are ill or out of town 
or consider another thing of greater importance, 
to say so frankly instead of offering that old, 
old platitude as an excuse : " I 'm so busy." Of 
course, if you live in America and in the twen- 
tieth century, you have plenty to do — probably 
more than you should have. But what you do 
is a matter of selection or necessity — not a 
matter of busy-ness. 

If you cannot pare down the number of things 
you must do, why not ring a change on the 
wording? Words have more effect upon us than 
we realize. Say, " Oh, I 'm so busy," a dozen times 
rapidly, and see how busy you feel when you 

( 285') 



Our Common Road 



get through. You will feel rushed to the verge 
of hysteria; and yet that is what hundreds of 
women think or say a thousand times a day. 
Why, merely omitting that single phrase from 
their lives would net them several hours a week! 
Would it not be an admirable idea to try it 
just for to-day? What? Too busy? 

<a 19 e> 

THE GRAY LIFE 

The artistic room is not the room which is 
cluttered and jammed with things, but the one 
which gives the impression of unity, order, and 
harmony. It is not the various pieces of furni- 
ture, bric-a-brac, and drapery which catch the 
eye and arrest the attention, — such things are 
merely distracting, — but it is the whole effect 
which either pleases or displeases and makes a 
room successful or not. And a beautiful gown 
is one which delights you; not one which makes 
you stop to admire the sewing or catch your 
breath over the expensiveness of the material. 
The Japanese never cease to marvel at our lack 

(286 > 



Our Common Road 



of artistic appreciation, and they delight to point 
out to us the grace and charm of simplicity. 
One flower in a vase — one spray of green across 
a sky of gray — this is beauty. 

And what is true of artistic lines is true else- 
where. The beautiful life — the artistic method 
of living — is not the one jammed and cluttered 
with experiences. It is the life which takes all 
experience harmoniously. The meager existence 
is often more beautiful than the full one. Sim- 
plicity has more charms than elaboration. 

Often we rebel at what looks to us like the 
narrowness and emptiness of our lives. There 
is so little variety, so little of the unexpected 
and the dashing. We forget the loveliness of a 
gray life — the delicacy, the subtle tints and 
shades that are only possible when experiences 
come sparsely or filtered through long periods 
of waiting. But the woman who makes the 
most out of simple joys is infinitely more charm- 
ing and interesting than the woman who simply 
catches the most obvious events out of the great 
handfuls which are tossed to her. Quiet lives 
are more exquisite than crowded ones, just as 

c 287 ) 



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quiet shadows are more restful than crude sun- 
light. 

If you live in the country and only go to the 
city a few times in a year, your perceptions are 
more keenly attuned to the city's sights and 
sounds than if you were used to them. Fine 
appreciations come not through haste but lei- 
sure, not from many but from few objects. 

Do not fret because you cannot venture forth 
to see the world. If you are sensitive there will 
always be a world at your hand too vast and 
too absorbing ever to exhaust. Do not envy 
the cluttered lives of others. Long stretches of 
solitude and quietness are the best preparation 
for joy, and the quiet shadows are more restful 
than the crude sunlight. 

<£ 20 %> 
GETTING A NEW SENSATION 

Are you bored with life to-day ? Are all the 

books stale and all the people tiresome? Does 

the house look dingy, the sky gray, and is the 

family fretful ? Do you long, mutely and hope- 

( 288 ) 



Our Common Road 



lessly, for a change? What a relief it would be 
to take a flying trip to Bermuda; how delightful 
to have a change of scene, to meet some new 
people and to get a few new ideas to knock against 
the old ones! But you can't go — you have n'tgot 
the time: you haven't got the money: you can't 
possibly get away. All you can do is to fume 
inwardly and think, as you survey your discon- 
tented countenance in the glass, " I am getting 
old and cold and gray," like the melancholy 
ladies in Christina Rossetti's poems. 

A very wise policy in this world, where we 
have to formulate so many policies in order to 
get through with anything like a whole skin, is 
to take a little thing if you cannot get a big one. 
If you cannot take a trip to Bermuda, but are 
perishing and wasting away for a new sensation, 
why not concoct some new and savory dish for 
supper? It is remarkably refreshing to taste 
something new: it stimulates the imagination, the 
palate, and the eye. Some of us have quite for- 
gotten the innocent enjoyment that can come 
through something as simple as a novel dish that 
tickles the appetite and sets one's friends guessing. 
( 289 ) 



Our Common Road 



An intelligent woman who saw her hus- 
band getting more and more listless, and was 
powerless to help him in any radical way, placed 
the following supper dish before him: She fried 
two eggs lightly, perfectly, in bacon fat, placed 
them upon the thinnest and most delicately 
browned slices of eggplant, and poured over them 
a cardinal sauce of chicken stock and tomato. 
The dish was a delight to the eye, with its scarlet 
sauce, its golden eggs, and the brown eggplant, 
and its elusive taste and consistency were tanta- 
lizing and delectable. The husband nibbled, 
nibbled, nibbled again, and then applied him- 
self to full enjoyment of the delicacy, and finally 
looked up with a real smile of interest. He had 
had a new sensation, gustatory and mental, and 
he enjoyed it thoroughly. 

A slight thing ? Yes, exceedingly slight. But 
the biggest haystack you ever saw was made of 
single blades of grass. 

It is just as stupid to eat the selfsame things 

week in and week out as it would be to wear 

the selfsame dress week in and week out. You 

get physical and mental refreshment by varying 

( 290 ) 



Our Common Road 



your clothes; you will get the same refreshment 
by varying your menu. 

Every country has its peculiar dishes ; there 
are infinite combinations one may get hold of, 
and each brings its own delicate or pungent sen- 
sation to relieve the monotony that begins to 
settle in upon us at certain times of year. 

Not exactly as good as a trip to Bermuda; 
but still, if you cannot get a sunset, you may 
revel in a gleam of sunlight that breaks through 
the sodden February sky, and even eggs on 
eggplant with cardinal sauce may make the day 
less stale and the family momentarily cheerful. 

<8* 21 S> 
BEHAVING OURSELVES 

Grown people are commonly supposed to 
have reached that stage of intelligence and self- 
control when they know enough to behave them- 
selves. But this is a fallacious supposition. An 
extraordinary number of grown people do not 
behave themselves at all, except when they hap- 
pen to feel like it, which can hardly be called 
( 2 9* ) 



Our Common Road 



behaving any more than a kitten which is play- 
ful and pretty can be called behaving. 

By behaving ourselves is meant nothing very 
profound or intricate. It is merely having sense 
enough not to show our disagreeable moods 
or exhibit our ugly actions to those about us. 
How we are going to handle such moods or 
control the impulse to such actions lies in the 
deeper realm of psychology and character ; it is 
only their expression which comes under the 
more superficial head of deportment and man- 
ners. 

People who behave themselves never sulk, 
never lose their tempers, never expose uncom- 
fortable emotions, never do obviously incon- 
siderate things. This does not mean that they 
are actually any better or worse than others ; it 
simply means that they know how to act toward 
society. To snap and growl at your friends or 
your servants because you chance to feel cross 
shows the same lack of breeding as completing 
one's toilet or finishing one's dinner on the 
street-car. People will not flee from you as ter- 
rifying in the first case, nor condemn you as 
( 292 ) 



Our Common Road 



incapable of decency in the second : only they 
will place you in the class of the rude and un- 
intelligent, and they will be quite right. 

There is a certain code of delicacy which is 
observed by all who care for the niceties of life, 
and this code forbids the exposure of things 
which are either repulsive or private to the 
public gaze. 

We sometimes find people who are so con- 
fident of their power or ability or position that 
they do not bother to conceal their other char- 
acteristics which are not admirable. Often ladies 
of charm permit themselves to appear snobbish; 
men of brains are brusque; kind-hearted women 
flare up at the least provocation. If we like 
them well enough, we may tolerate these defects 
for the sake of their other qualities, but they 
do not enhance but only detract from the com- 
plete value of the individual. If you have suffi- 
cient genuine distinction you can afford to ignore 
the conventionalities of polite society. If you 
have not, you will fare badly until you learn 
how to conduct yourself in your daily life and 
in contact with ordinary and casual people. 
( 293 ) 



Our Common Road 



It is so stupid and unnecessary to antagonize 
by showing bad temper or jealousy or pettiness 
or disregard for the rights of others. And it is 
so simple to cultivate the habit of always be- 
ing civil and always outwardly cheerful. It is 
largely a matter of habit, and those who have not 
been taught to conform to it must teach them- 
selves if they wish to have not only the affection 
of those who know them, but the respect of 
those with whom they are obliged to meet and 
deal. 

c& 22 %> 

DOING IT OURSELVES 

There is an ancient adage which informs us 
that the only way to be sure that a piece of work 
is well done is to do it ourselves. Theoretically 
this may be true; practically it presents many 
weaknesses. If certain people wish to be sure 
that dinner will be well cooked, for example, 
they had much better get a culinary expert than 
attempt to manage the matter themselves. In 
fact, there are usually professionals in every line 
who can accomplish what we want done more 
( 2 94 ) 



Our Common Road 



quickly and more efficiently than we can, and 
the old adage which sounds so wise goes on 
three legs as soon as we harness it to a load. 

But there is one advantage in doing things 
ourselves, only it is concerned more with the 
doer than with the deed. When we do some- 
thing ourselves, we comprehend and remember 
the process and appreciate and enjoy the result 
with a vividness and indelibility never won in 
any other way. 

One of the typical sights abroad is a group 
of four or five persons obediently following in 
the train of one who carries a small red guide- 
book. This one is figuring out the name of the 
street, the location and distance of the sight to 
be visited, and struggling with the tramway sys- 
tem. It would seem at first glance as if those 
who were being conducted were the lucky ones, 
and as if the hard-working conductor were to 
be commiserated. But at the end of the day or 
the end of the trip, who best remembers what 
has been seen? Always the one who has for- 
mulated the plan and carried the responsibility. 

And so it is in every field. Any one in your 
( 2 95 ) 



Our Common Road 



club might be as good a president as yourself or 
better, but if you accept the office and fulfill 
it to the best of your ability, you will know 
from definite experience certain things which 
you would never realize if you merely thought 
or talked or read or heard about them. 

If every person with some artistic gift for music 
or writing or painting or sculpture thought only 
of how well it had all been done before and how 
futile it is to attempt it again, we should soon 
reach a deadlock in our artistic output. You 
may not be a Wagner or a Michael Angelo or 
a Shakespeare; it may be undeniably true and 
most painfully evident that they have already 
done to perfection what you will never do ex- 
cept with great defects; but, nevertheless, as 
you work and strive to fulfill your ideal, you 
will come into a much truer appreciation of 
these masters, and your own work, while small, 
will be increasingly excellent. And if you merely 
look on and criticize and contribute nothing, 
you will lose your standards and your force. 
For in proportion as our own efforts are sincere 
do we win the right to judge and to understand 
( 296 ) 



Our Common Road 



the efforts of others, and always when we work 
we open a channel for those aspirations which, 
if they do not become a source of inspiration, 
will become one of sorrow. 

Everything in the world has been done a 
thousand times. It has all been attempted and 
lived through and accomplished infinitely better 
than we can accomplish it. But although what 
we are struggling for may never amount to a 
great deal from the point of actual achievement, 
nevertheless our earnestness and idealism in the 
struggle are what make the difference between 
a character of strength or weakness and a life 
of failure or success. 

<8 23 ■&> 

THE WOMAN WHO CANNOT BE ALONE 

There is a certain type of woman who is as 
much afraid of being left by herself as a shy 
man is afraid of being marooned in a. corner with 
a flirtatious girl. The woman who hates to be 
alone will do anything, seize anybody, hurry 
anywhere, if she can only escape from herself. 
( 297 ) 



Our Common Road 



She is so terrified at the thought of going out 
from town without company that she will sit 
down beside some woman who bores her and 
whom she bores and insist upon clinging to 
her all the way out. To stay in an empty house 
scares her to death. A solitary meal is unen- 
durable. 

Nervousness is one cause of this fear, and 
habit another; but the woman who cannot bear 
to be alone misses a great deal. In the first place, 
she misses an enormous amount of time trying 
to connect with somebody every time she goes 
out or comes in, and in the second place, she loses 
hold of her individuality. Schopenhauer insists 
that the greatest sin one can commit against 
one's spirit is to refuse to recognize it. He de- 
clares that the man who, to escape from his own 
thoughts, picks up a book or seeks out a com- 
panion, insults his inner life. The time to read 
is when your interest is flagging and you need 
stimulating; not when your thoughts are seeth- 
ing and you need expression. 

One of the great troubles of modern life is 
that there seems to be so little time for solitude 

( 298 > 



Our Common Road 



in it, and it is only when we are absolutely alone 
that we can gather up the power and regain the 
poise that we so need for the demands made 
upon us. This is one reason why a separate 
room for each member of the family should not 
be considered a luxury, but a necessity. 

College girls often break down not because 
of overwork, but because the hundreds of per- 
sonalities insistently surging around them wear 
on their nerves as waves wear upon the rocks. 
Human nature cannot endure constant contact 
with other personalities, — 

" For the heart must pause to breathe, 
And love itself have rest." 

Many a woman who is irritable and unstrung 
would find that the chief trouble comes from 
dissipating her nervous force by continual fric- 
tion with people. And many women who live 
quiet and secluded lives acquire an atmosphere 
of wide peace and serenity that broods like a 
dove above the fret of daily life. 

Too many of us cannot choose our lives: we 
must accept them. But we can choose things 
in our lives. We can choose to sit with folded 
( 299 ) 



Our Common Road 



hands alone some evening in solitary quietness 
and let the stillness of our own hearts speak to 
us. We can learn to withdraw into ourselves 
even in the busy streets and on the noisy cars. 
We can stop picking up a trashy magazine to 
drive away the questionings of our own minds, 
and desperately seizing a passing acquaintance 
to talk to because we are afraid to be alone with 
ourselves. 

WHAT HE GIVES 

A man marries a woman, builds a house, 
and puts her into it. Then he goes about his 
business and she devotes herself to household 
tasks. As the years pass, children come, and 
the wife gives up every personal interest and 
devotes herself to them. She may not be espe- 
cially strong, but she gets through her duty as 
millions of women have done before her, and 
it is not until she is forty-five or fifty, and the 
children are less of a responsibility and the house 
runs more smoothly, that she has time to draw 
a long breath and to think, a little timidly, about 
( 300 ) 



Our Common Road 



resuming some of the pleasures and pursuits 
which she has so long foregone. And then, grad- 
ually, she begins to realize the ghastly truth 
that she cannot resume these things; she has 
lost her spring, her resiliency, her initiative. She 
has been so busy in such a narrow groove for 
such an extended and unbroken period that she 
feels utterly incapable of anything else. And 
her husband, with half-irritated tolerance, won- 
ders why his wife is so much older and less in- 
teresting than the wives of Smith and Jones. 

Does it ever occur to him that she has nothing 
to fall back on because he has brought her 
nothing ? All those busy, taxing years when she 
was drained to the uttermost, what did he do 
for her ? He was engrossed in business, and left 
the house and the children to her. He bought 
her things, and told her to do what she wanted, 
but he never took the trouble to keep her soul 
alive. He never cultivated her interest in any- 
thing; he never gave her his man's point of 
view in regard to the trifling matters that loomed 
so large on her horizon ; he forgot to encourage 
her small talent for singing or playing. When 
( 3oi ) 



Our Common Road 



he came home at night, he was so tired with 
making money that he could not go anywhere 
with her. He might have known that if she 
was the fine woman he had loved she would 
rather have a little less money and a little more 
human companionship. 

And now he wonders why she is narrow and 
dull. Does he not know that he, and he alone, 
had the opportunity to keep her youthful and 
gay? If he had cared to develop her, if he had 
had the patience to educate her, and the love to 
encourage her, if he had brought her sweetness 
instead of carelessness, she would have bloomed 
instead of withering, and be more vitalized to-day 
than she was when he married her. 

"Why, I gave her everything," says such a 
husband in utter astonishment. Everything? 
He gave her clothes and food and shelter. Men- 
tally, spiritually, he brought her nothing. He 
starved her for the food which would have kept 
her individuality alive. And now he has a dull, 
limp woman on his hands instead of an intelli- 
gent companion and a quick, fond friend. 

Some strong women are able to do these things 
( 302 ) 



Our Common Road 



for themselves, but the frailer ones are as de- 
pendent upon their circumstances as a rose tree 
is dependent upon the soil in which it is planted. 
Women need care, sympathy, encouragement. 
The narrow women are frequently the women 
whose husbands have never taken the time to 
broaden them as only a man can broaden a wo- 
man. 

" I have given her everything," says such a 
man complacently. And he would stare at you 
in amazement if you told him the truth : "You 
have given her nothing." 

SAYING GOOD-BYE 

The same melancholy enjoyment that some 
people extract in attending funerals may be ob- 
served, "changed not in kind but in degree," 
in the pensive ceremony of saying good-bye. 

Do you not remember how, when you were 
a small child, the briefest of journeys necessi- 
tated the most elaborate and protracted of leave 
takings? Every neighbor had to be visited, every 
( 303 ) 



Our Common Road 



friend embraced, while the actual parting from 
the family itself and the actual departure from 
the house wrung from you every variation of 
anguish. 

We become less lavish in our emotional ex- 
penditure as we grow older. We no longer fling 
our arms around the yellow cat which we must, 
perforce, leave behind, or drop tears upon the 
garden walk in memory of happy hours. Al- 
though there are occasions when we close a 
door behind us with a curious thrill of solemnity, 
and although a mysterious impulse sometimes 
urges us to hold a departing friend with sudden 
passionate closeness, yet, except for those few 
who make a graceful affair of it, saying good-bye 
is a conventional performance, walked through 
in the most stereotyped fashion. 

You leave your house or your office for a few 
weeks' holiday, and before you go make a hasty 
round of leave-taking, consisting of abrupt inter- 
ruptions of some busy people and the utterance 
of a few platitudes as you perfunctorily disen- 
gage your hand from theirs and hurry to the 
next. There is no sentiment in it — no grace. 
( 304 ) 



Our Common Road 



What you think of your neighbor or feel in re- 
gard to her, your future remembrance or your 
past associations are not in the least affected by 
your final mutual adieux. Saying good-bye, as 
it is commonly said, means no more than twirl- 
ing a stick in the air, and might just as easily be 
dispensed with. 

To be sure, there are some people who always 
contrive to do the thing prettily. If they come 
to the boat or the train to see one off, there is 
a flattery in the attention as delicate and pleas- 
ing as a sweet aroma. If they make a bon-voyage 
gift, it is exactly right, neither too much nor too 
little, too significant nor too trifling. If they 
write, their notes of farewell are charmingly 
worded ; if they manifest themselves in the flesh, 
their turn of speech is of the happiest order. 
With these persons, saying good-bye has be- 
come a highly perfected accomplishment, the 
display of which should be encouraged by all 
patrons of the fine arts. But when leave-taking 
is not marked by either genuine emotion or 
artistic finish, it might well be quietly dropped 
altogether. Feverish telephone rings, followed 
( 305 ) 



Our Common Road 



by gasping, "Just called up to say good-bye," 
add neither to the charm of social intercourse 
nor the maintenance of deeper relationships. 

Why cheapen the value of a genuine farewell 
by a thousand careless counterfeits? Time will 
probably toss us all together again, and, if not, 
it is of no momentous difference. " Auf wieder- 
sehen," the Germans say lightly; and a casual 
wave of the hand is frequently in better taste 
than a heavy recital of acknowledgments of what 
has passed and hopes for what may come. 

Saying good-bye — and how often it chances 
that the one good-bye which might have soft- 
ened the poignant severing of ties most intimate 
and close was never uttered at all, but only felt 
inwardly and held, long afterward, deep in our 
hearts. 



THE END 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S • A 



40V 5 1913 



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